Sometimes You Know
by planet p
Summary: Abby's not been feeling herself lately, and for that matter, neither has Nikola. *most likely crack*
1. Chapter 1

Abby sighed, idly watching her breath mist out in front of her in a warm, white plume, the chilly, winter air doing its job well, freezing her to the bone despite the heavy coat she'd pulled on this morning. The ground crunched underneath her boots as she walked and she wondered why she'd decided to take this walk this morning when, in truth, she'd have loved nothing more than to stay in bed under her nice, warm covers and dream of warmer, happier moments. Perhaps, she thought, she merely did so out of habit, the trek long ago engrained into her bone and muscle. She'd only feel lazy and slobbish if she didn't, and she'd feel guilty for having been too lazy. The walk was hard in this cold weather, but not impossible, and working an office job nine to five, she honestly could do with the exercise, she knew; with the time outdoors, out and about. And hadn't she read somewhere recently that even half an hour of exercise a day could reduce your risk of depression, or something? It was as good a reason as any, to her mind. These days, depression was becoming more and more common, whether or not people could admit to themselves they were suffering from it or not. And she did not want to be one of those people; she did not want her happiness sapped away, made into something so ho-hum she couldn't even be bothered with it any more.

Brushing aside these thoughts, she shivered underneath her heavy winter coat and continued on down the path. She had a lot to look forward to, a lot to be happy for, and not a second to waste being down and gloomy about things. After all, she had Will. He really did make her happy, and he was always so wonderful. She thought she might be falling in love with him, and it was great, but... she'd been having nagging feelings lately that something was wrong between them, that maybe _she_ was the one who was wrong.

Will hadn't said anything or even given any signals that she was in any way ill-suited to him, but she just couldn't shake the feeling that something was up. Maybe it had something to do with the nightmares she'd been having lately – she didn't know exactly, she never could recall what she dreamed about and why it so scared her – but she just wished she had more to go on. She really liked Will and she couldn't even imagine hurting him in any way, but if something was wrong with her she didn't want Will involved in any way – didn't want to run the risk of harming him.

Perhaps she was jumping to conclusions, being overly paranoid; life had been different – sometimes strange, sometimes wondrous – for her since discovering the truth about the Sanctuary and abnormals. It was possible she was blowing this feeling out of all proportion, but she still couldn't run the risk of being wrong, of dismissing it out of hand, and ending up to regret the consequences when she hurt someone she cared for deeply.

Maybe she was depressed. Or worse, overly clingy, overly possessive. She'd never known herself to be so in the past, but perhaps she just hadn't recognised the signs herself, had been unwilling to see them for what they were – a budding mental illness, or something not altogether favourable, in any case. After all, she'd remembered Will when he hadn't remembered her – as if she'd begun fixating on the guy.

The thought chilled her more than the frosty air biting her skin, making her cheeks rosy.

There was no way! If she was turning into one of those ugly-inside, obsessed-to-the-point-of-psycho girlfriends she'd just have to pack up her things and leave town as soon as humanly possible. Will didn't need someone like that around, messing up his head, and she didn't need him to be making up excuses for her every time she messed up out of some misguided love and loyalty to her, telling himself every time she'd change, she'd get help, and he'd be the one to help her help herself.

Perhaps others were able to brave it through that, but Will didn't deserve that, and she wouldn't be the one putting him in that position.

Returning home at last, she sat down at her kitchen table for breakfast and absently stared out the window, the sunlight touching her cheeks barely impressing on her at all. She sipped her black coffee and tried to drag her mood up somewhat slightly. She'd be meeting Will later, she just had to lighten up and muster a smile. She didn't want to upset him and she hated the thought of being down around him, of their time spent together somehow rendering itself into something less _lovely_.

Shaking herself mentally, she left to brush her hair for the second time that day. The cold air had made it unhappy, just as she was, and she didn't like the effect.

.

Arriving at the Sanctuary later in the day, she knocked on the door and was let in by Nikola who was, for once, not smiling. "Good afternoon, Abigail."

"Hello, Nikola." She pointedly ignored the gloomy expression he was currently wearing and tried for a small smile, her stomach suddenly turning itself in knots not altogether comfortably. "Where's Will?" she asked a moment later, wondering why he hadn't been the one to answer the door and partly attempting to distract herself from her suddenly painful stomach ache.

Closing the door after them, Nikola muttered something about a mission, his tone as dark and gloomy as his mood seemed to be.

Abby sighed wearily, hoping she wasn't swaying too badly. She didn't want anyone to think she was sick or drunk and be sent off the premises for it. "Oh."

Nikola shot her a very funny look and she opened her eyes a bit wider, leaning away from him, only to have him lean closer, narrowing his eyes on her suspiciously. "What do you mean, 'Oh'?"

"What do I-?" She laughed, suddenly finding his behaviour very amusing, and shook her head. For a moment, she decided he was merely attempting to cheer her up, and then the moment passed and she found herself no longer laughing, and staring at him strangely in much the same way he was eyeing her.

"I..." She winced. "I came by to see Will, as I'm sure you'd already deduced. I guess I should have called ahead to see if he was in, but I didn't, and now here I am. So, he's out on a mission and won't be back until he's back. I could do with a coffee, if there's any in stock."

Nikola smiled suddenly, rather sinisterly, and asked, "How do you know he's on a mission, my dear?"

She frowned, not liking his smile, as if he assumed she was up to something. "You just told me he was, didn't you? Goodness me, what a fuss!"

"I told you no such thing," he replied steadily.

She rolled her eyes, pointing at the now closed door, one hand on her hip, and attempted to imitate their earlier conversation. "'Heya, Nicky! You seen Will about, by any chance?' 'No!' Insert assorted grumbling. 'He's on a mission.' Insert more grumbling."

Nikola stared at her for a few moments, slightly lost for words, before replying, "Incidentally, we're out of coffee. My deepest apologies – _the stuff obviously doesn't agree with you_."

She laughed. "YYSSW, Nikola! What-ever!"

Nikola widened his eyes and stepped away from her. "She's speaking in tongues!"

"Hardly," she muttered. "I just want coffee. If I can't have Will, I should at least get a consolation prize. I know there has to be some coffee around here somewhere. My stomach's killing me and someone's holding out on the caffeine. Not cute, Nikola. Not cute."

He huffed, dropping his shoulders heavily, and gestured ahead of him. "If you will allow me, mademoiselle."

"YYSSW," she muttered, falling into step behind him.

"_I still say there's something highly suspicious about her_," Nikola muttered to himself.

She laughed loudly, placing a hand over her chest. "Me! There's something highly suspicious about _me_!"

He spun around swiftly and stared at her, frowning in worry. "Mystery solved, my dear Watson. You! Drinking and driving. You do know that's illegal, Abigail?" He leant a little closer. "And you might've told me you understand Serbian."

"Right," she replied, fighting very hard to remain casual about this whole thing. "Serbian, drink-driving. Ah... _huh?_ FYI, Nikola – a) I don't do DUI, and b) I don't speak – or _understand_ – Serbian."

"Denial. How adorable!"

She smacked his arm with an open hand. "I am _not_ in denial! You're- Oh!" She clutched her middle suddenly, the colour draining from her face, the pain much worse than before. "Oh crab cakes!"

Nikola frowned and stepped closer, obviously concerned. "_What's wrong? What hurts?_"

The pain was worse and she didn't really want his concern, especially seeing as he so delighted in antagonising her. "Nothing," she replied too quickly, irritated with his sudden concern. She stepped back sharply, when he tried to touch her arm. "Don't touch me!"

Ignoring her, he stepped closer with a sigh. "Really, Abigail. I apologise for teasing you before, but if you're unwell-"

She growled at him darkly, baring her straight, white teeth. "_Back off, Nikola!_"

He froze, staring at her weirdly, and that was when Henry appeared on the scene. "Abby! Hey! Are you alright?"

She forcibly removed her gaze from Nikola's and glanced at Henry. All of a sudden, the excruciating pain in her stomach began to lessen and she could stand up properly again, the strain in her face fading away. "Hi, Henry. Yes, I'm fine, but your Nicky's another matter. He's really starting to try my patience."

Henry grinned at her for a second as her words sunk in, then he just frowned. "Uh... Nicky?" He almost winced on the last word.

Abby pointed accusingly at Nikola. "That one there!"

Henry swallowed and sighed nervously. "Wow!"

"Do you have coffee? I think I need coffee – before I _strangle_ him!"

"Yeah, sure, it's just this way." Henry walked away, then stopped to wait for her to follow.

She threw a glare in Nikola's direction and he just stared at her blankly until she wandered off with Henry. A long moment later, he shrugged, muttering to himself in Serbian, "_Disturbed. That girl is just plain disturbed_." He laughed. "_What am I saying – she's not a _girl_, she's a _she-devil_! A _disturbed_ she-devil!_"

.

Abby sat staring at the wall morosely, not really seeing the wall at all, and feeling just plain bad. She'd really had no reason to lose it with Nikola like that, even if he'd been acting strange and her stomach had been acting just as strange, which is seemed not to be doing any more for some unexplainable reason.

She sniffed and grabbed her coffee, wondering why he'd taken to calling her Abigail all of a sudden, or why he was accusing her of understanding Serbian when she had no idea what Serbian sounded like even.

Closing her eyes, she tried thinking back to when she'd first knocked on the door earlier and working her way back through their conversation. When she reached the part where she asked about will and he started mumbling about the mission Will had gone off on with Helen and Kate, she frowned and opened her eyes. Oh. So he had been right. He'd been speaking some other language and she'd understood... somehow.

She frowned some more, looking down at her coffee. No, wait, of course she understood! And... and...! Oh. She sniffed. So that was what it was called. Serbian. She'd always thought it may be something mysterious and known to very few, but it was just plain old Serbian after all.

She sniffed again and tried to contain the urge to find that skinny whip and find him and punch him out, smiling at her in that sinister way and then feigning concern... or something...

She looked away from her coffee suddenly, blushing, embarrassed for no reason, as though it was staring at her knowingly. So what if some creepy, skinny guy had smiled at her weirdly on _several_ occasions and just happened to know Serbian and could speak it as perfectly as he spoke English, without even a trace of an accent? In fact, he was far too skinny for her tastes! And he wasn't even her type – not to mention, she was with Will!

And it hadn't been that sort of smile anyway, she told herself. Even if...

She sniffed, resisting the urge to brush her coffee aside and smash the cup on the floor in her miserableness.

She tried to imitate his sinister smile and found that it was all too easy. It just plain gave her the creeps.

Brushing off the feeling that she was slowly but steadily changing, turning into someone she surely wouldn't like, she consoled herself by humming an old song her father had hummed for her as a child, and wished she could have just picked up her phone and rung him, like other people. She missed him, and that tool Nikola wasn't helping matters with his silly smug voice or his ridiculous leering or his pretending to be her friend and pretending to even _know_ her! What the blazes did he know about her anyway? Nothing!

Absolutely nothing.

She clenched her fists hard, her nails digging into her skin painfully, but that was okay. It was okay, because she was absolutely not going to cry. Not here, not today. Not for a long, long time. And hopefully – _not ever_.

It was okay.

She was alive, and that was what counted. That was what her father would have wanted. And he would have wanted her to be happy, not miserable or angry. Happy.

She was just going to have to avoid that Nicky in future, that was all, she decided.

.

Abby was sitting on the table, kicking her legs back and forth absently, munching on a chocolate cupcake with what she thought really quite delicious choc butter frosting, when Will appeared in the door.

"Abby!"

She patted the tabletop beside her. "Hi, Will. Do you want a cupcake? They're nice. I found them in the fridge and decided they needed a little love."

Will smiled nervously and came and sat beside her on the table, frowning at the plastic tub of cupcakes with the note on the front _For Sexy_.

"How was the mission?" she asked, turning to meet his gaze with a smile.

"Fine, I guess. Yeah, it was fine. Ah, Abby, do you really think you should be eating those?"

"Oh yes, I should _definitely_ be eating them!" She grinned. "They're so yum! Really, have one, I dare you!"

"Ah..."

She laughed. "Honestly, Will, it's not like someone's gonna bite your head off!"

"They might," he replied hesitantly. He had a sneaking suspicion he knew exactly who the cupcakes were for, and it wasn't Abby or he. Based on the fact that it was Tesla's handwriting, he just knew some serious trouble was likely to come their way when the guy discovered Abby was chowing down on something he'd made for _his_ Helen, but he still wasn't quite sure how to tell Abby.

She grinned. "Don't tell me you know this Sexy person?" she asked in amusement.

"Ah..."

"What? Will, spill already. If you know something, just tell me."

"What about you?" he asked, changing topics. "It's great to see you! Did you come here to see me, or...?"

She swatted his arm playfully, smiling. "Who do you think, William?" she giggled.

"How long have you been waiting?"

"Not long."

But long enough to discover the refrigerator and start rummaging through it. He frowned, suddenly. There was a reason she was indulging on chocolately things, he just knew it. "You're not mad at me, are you?"

"No. Why would I be? Work is work, Will. I get that. Oh my God! Take them off me!" She handed the plastic tub to Will with wide eyes. "Please, take them away before I eat them all and give myself another stomach ache."

He took the tub off her and placed it beside him on the table, frowning some more. "You felt sick? Are you feeling better now?"

She grinned, leaning over to rest her head on his shoulder. "Much better, thank you," she told him happily, but he couldn't help noticing that she'd seemed a little... detached from him, seemingly more interested in the cupcakes than in the fact that she'd been waiting for what might have been hours for him to show up and then when he finally did... she offered him a cupcake and rested her head on his shoulder, as if they were merely friends.

Just as he was formulating something to say to Abby, Kate swung into the room and swaggered over, her eyes first going to the pair sitting _on_ the table, then to the cupcakes in their plastic container. "Ouch!"

Will shot her a look that said, _I know_, and winced, just remembering that Abby was with him and he was supposed to be on Abby's side in this whole thing, or something like that. Abby was his girl, and even if Kate _was_ his friend, his girl took precedence over his sometimes buddy.

Abby opened her eyes and stared at Kate. "Oh, hello." She smiled for a moment, then dropped it, seeing where Kate had been staring. "What? Were those yours? Oh, I'm really sorry. I was just hungry... and they're really nice."

Kate shook her head, then remembered to grin. "Hey, it's cool with me. They're not mine, lady." She winced, seeming to realise Abby might take her addition of 'lady' the wrong way, as supposing herself better than her. "Ah!" She laughed nervously. "I think they're Magnus's."

Abby frowned, her face falling. "Oh, heck it! Sorry, your boss is going to be pretty mad, I guess."

Kate shook her head. "Nuh-ah, not Magnus. But Tesla – he's another matter altogether, I'm afraid. That's his," she waved a finger about, "squiggle."

Will laughed, clapping a hand over his mouth in apology as soon as he did. Actually, Tesla had very neat handwriting, but it was still funny hearing Kate say it like that.

Abby sat up properly and slipped off the table, her shoulders slumping. "Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Nikola and I aren't on the best of terms today. I can see it already." She looked at Will sadly. "I'm sorry."

He held up his hands. "Hey, it's okay. You haven't hurt anyone. They're just cupcakes – and they were made to be eaten, after all, and not just stared at."

Kate punched him in the arm. "Not talking about eating, Will!" she admonished. "You know I get hungry any time anyone mentions the word 'eating'."

He snickered, nodding at her. Oh yeah, he knew it. He knew it alright.

He dragged his gaze away from Kate's disapproving glare and glanced back at Abby, sliding off the table and walking over to her and putting his arms around her. "What's really wrong, Abby? Not to offend, but you seem a little off today. Was Tesla up to his usual antics again?" His eyes darkened as he leant back to look into her eyes.

She shook her head silently. "It's me," she said quietly, then sniffed. "I'm sorry. I'm just in a gloomy mood, and then I was so horrible to Nikola; I'm sure he hates me – and I miss..."

Will rubbed her arms reassuringly. "Hey! Abby, I'm right here."

She turned her head away from him, staring at the wall once more. "I miss my father," she admitted quietly, as if afraid of offending him, of upsetting him because of what had happened to his mother.

He pulled her in for a hug again. "I understand where you're coming from perfectly."

She looked around and saw Kate eating a cupcake, lounging back against the table casually. Kate winked at her as if to say, _If Nikola wants to yell at someone, he can yell at us both. See how he likes it when he get hold of him and spank him for being such a temper-tantrum baby_.

Abby laughed sadly and snuggled closer to Will.

.

Kate sighed and sat back in one of the kitchen chairs, lounging on it on two legs the way she'd always been told not to. Will and Abby had left some while ago so Abby, who was going through a deep funk or something, could apologise to Magnus for eating her cupcakes, and Kate was just waiting for Tesla to show so he could roust her some and she could smile at it all. And, of course, she was trying her damnedest not to think about Will hugging Abby, not to think about how it had just melted her heart to sticky, buttery mush seeing him being so gentle and understanding with the other woman. Hell, Will was her colleague, sometimes even her friend, but they weren't pals. They _definitely_ weren't pals – so if she was thinking of getting jealous, or if that was what this tight feeling in her chest really was – assuming it wasn't Tesla's marvellous attempt at cupcakes – then she could just take a running leap with that idea. Clearly, Will was in love with Abby, and Abby with he. And there was zero room for her, or her temper-tantrum antics. She wasn't Tesla – she wouldn't be leaving Will anything cutesy with a little note on it, _For the one who's stolen my heart, AKA You, Will!_

No way, José!

Nope, she'd just be here, waiting for Tesla to turn up and demand they fight it out, hand-to-hand combat style, and then she'd just have to kick his butt good – and she would _not_ be thinking about Will at all when she did so. Not one bit.

Yep, that was what she'd be doing.

If Tesla ever showed up, that was.

.

Abby was just leaving Magnus's office alone, as Will's boss had decided they needed to talk about something very quickly, when she spied Nikola grinning at her from around the corner, as if he knew something about her she didn't, and she glared at him, muttering under her breath, "Like the scientist! Like a psycho, more like."

He smiled and walked over casually, saying, "I resent that statement, Abigail. Very much so."

She stuck up her hand and half-turned away from him. "Talk to the hand, Nikola, 'cause Abigail ain't listening. Abigail wants to punch you right now and is trying very hard to resist, so you might as well make like the wind and Pssssh! Move on, Nicky, _move on_."

He leant closer and whispered in her ear, "Just you try, my dear." Adding, as an afterthought, "If it'll make you feel better..."

She scowled silently and spun around to face him, prodding him in the arm to get him to back off away from her. "Don't you tempt me, boy!"

"Boy!" He laughed in delight, his eyes sparkling darkly. "It has been quite a few years since then, I assure you, Abigail," he replied seriously.

"I know self-defence," she told him. "Back away!" She lifted her chin. "You know we don't get on, so why don't you just leave well enough alone?"

"I could say the same of you, my dear," he returned, smiling back at her.

Her eyes darkened and she clenched her fists angrily at her sides. "I am _trying_! You're not _letting me_ – always lurking around some corner and smiling at me sinisterly like that! Just drop it already and leave me _alone_!"

He considered her words for a moment, his eyes sparkling mischievously. "Mmm... Maybe... maybe not..."

"Maybe _Hell yes_!" she growled. "Like right now!"

"Why the big rush, my dear?" he enquired, perfectly innocent.

"Did you not just hear me when I said _we don't get along_?" she hissed, fighting very hard not to growl or take a swing at him. She'd never felt this aggressive towards anyone in her entire life and it scared her deeply, actually terrified her. There'd been plenty of times she could have used a feeling like this, but she'd just never had it in her then. The fact that she did now – and seemingly for very little reason – frightened her beyond words. Suddenly, she wished Will were around, wished he could see her now. The look of uncertainty and horror, the hurt on his face, would surely snap her back to her senses, and she had a feeling she needed snapping back to her senses very badly.

"I heard you!" he whispered delightedly, his tone sounding so completely and utterly thrilled Abby felt physically ill.

With that, her last semblance of cool snapped and she hissed, "Do you _want_ me to hurt you?"

His eyes burned darkly, the colour in them darkening to black. "You! – with your Nicky and your _Boy_! You, who imagines yourself such a _darling_ – I dare you to try, wench! _I dare you!_" And then his teeth sharpened, and she suddenly understood that all the time she'd thought his smile just plain sinister, she'd been wrong. Now it was sinister.

She didn't blink. Then, quite plainly, she told him, "I'm done. I'm over it. Please, just go away."

He stared at her. "What? No!" Despite the odd tone of his voice, he sounded put-out, disappointed. "I thought we were... fighting."

"I'm not in the mood," she replied, glancing to the side of him, once again at the wall.

He slumped a little, his teeth returning to normal, the colour coming back into his eyes. She pretended not to notice the way his fingernails had suddenly become more like fingernails once more and less like something thoroughly laughable and thoroughly deadly all at the same time.

She picked at one of the tiny scabs in her palm, from where she'd broken the skin earlier with her fingernails when she'd been upset, and went on staring at the wall, saying nothing.

Nikola inched closer silently and leant very close, as if to smell her hair. She pretended not to notice that, either. If Will came around the corner right about now, Nikola would be in for a world of sore and she wouldn't bat an eyelash.

She was still praying for Will to suddenly finish up with his meeting with Magnus and for him – or for the _pair_ of them – to arrive abruptly, when Nikola said, in a voice barely above a whisper, "You smell... odd."

She jerked away from him suddenly, almost stumbling over her feet in her haste, and wondered why in the hell she'd ever let him get so close anyway, why she hadn't just walked away, like any normal person would have. And why was she suddenly with the big eyes and the _Oh my God, your creepy comment really freaks me out, and you do, too!_ look on her face.

She stared at him in horror and forced herself to say, just casually, "Who cares?" Forced herself to whirl about and slowly, very steadily, walk away.

Like she should have done beforehand.

.

Nikola was still standing in the hallway trying to make sense of Abby's strange scent when Will breezed by and suddenly paused, frowning. "How are things?" he asked casually, and Nikola turned away jerkily and walked off, completely blowing him off.

He didn't feel like talking to Will right now; he didn't feel like talking to anyone. Abby had confused him and now all he wanted to do was get to the bottom of that confusion and figure it out, hopefully without drinking too much of Helen's wine.

_Don't think about Helen_, he told himself stiffly, and went on walking. No, the one he should have been thinking about was Abby; Abby who hadn't even flinched when he'd turned vamp on her, who'd been so angry at him, so seething mad, and then just not; who'd walked away with a simple, if not slightly cold, "Who cares?" Well, damn it, _he cared_! He cared!

He didn't have time to think about Helen. This girl was much more important. She could be dangerous, she could hurt someone. Someone like the Zimmerman boy, or Henry, who seemed to trust her, or Helen, who had too few female friends and even seemed to like Abby herself. As long as he didn't know what she was, he couldn't afford to waste time, to dilly-dally around, and he wasn't about to lag her in to Helen, either, to let on that the girl might be an abnormal. Because he wasn't so sure she was. Maybe she was just a human – a human with a deadly agenda. In other words, the very worst kind. The kind who couldn't be swayed, whose resolve was only fortified in the face of opposition.

He had a really very bad feeling in his stomach, just then.

.

Making sure to lock the cubicle door after her, Abby rested her head against the cool of the door and tried to keep from crying. She'd said she wouldn't and now she was all teary-eyed and blubbery in her throat, and all because of that Tesla, of the scientists' brood. He didn't seem very much like a scientist type to her. He seemed much more like the jerk type, in her opinion, and now apparently he was an abnormal. It couldn't get any worse, literally. If being a world-class jerk wasn't enough, being a world-class jerk with inhuman abilities surely topped the chart. And now she couldn't even get away from him, because this was the Sanctuary and the one place he was warmly welcome, the one place her boyfriend just happened to work.

She stared down at her hands miserably and stood up straighter, curling one of her hands into a fist and banging it on the door. She wasn't sure why she'd bothered, she didn't feel any better, but she was very sure her hand hurt now. She took a deep breath and then another. She closed her eyes and tried to summon the deep, dark anger she'd felt at Nikola earlier in the hall.

Nothing.

She couldn't do it.

Staring at her hands, shaking only slightly, she unlocked the cubicle door and walked out. Suddenly, it made some strange sort of sense why she was so angry at him. She'd seen his fingernails, how they'd gone black. Nikola was like her. She was pissed at him because she was pissed at her dad for abandoning her. She'd swore to herself she only missed him and wished him the very best in whatever life he was living right now, that she'd let go of her anger and the deep hurt long ago – but she'd only been lying to herself.

She never had.

She had to find Nikola. She had to find out if her theory was correct. If she really was like him.

.

Will sighed and walked back into the kitchen, nodding at Kate when she opened her eyes and returned from whatever daydream world she'd been kicking around in inside her mind. She set her chair back on all four of its legs with a dull chinking sound, and he leant back against the table and rested his hands beside him on the tabletop, curling his fingers around the edge. "So, today has been... interesting." He sighed heavily. Yes, he supposed that was one word for it. "How are you feeling? You holding up?"

"Me?" Kate laughed boisterously, clearly determined not to bring her colleague's already low mood down even further. "Always! You know me, baby boy. I'm a fighter. I may not be good – but I'm good at it."

Will laughed. Yeah, she was. If anything she'd ever said about herself was true, that was. But still, he couldn't help but wonder about such comments, if she still felt angry at herself for her past actions; he couldn't help but want to set the record straight. All of that was in the past, she wasn't that person anymore. She was a good person. In his eyes, she was a good person.

Seeing the look in Kate's eyes, like all of this bonding was making her uncomfortable, he refrained from mentioning it. It would only make her more uncomfortable.

He decided to change the topic. "Abby's going through some stuff right now..."

"Mmm..." Kate nodded. "I noticed."

Why he'd even brought it up, Will didn't know. He suddenly wished he hadn't. It was strange, how awkward he always felt around Kate these days. It had never been like this before... but now it suddenly was.

He couldn't figure that out.

"But she'll get through it," he said, as if reassuring Kate, though he supposed Kate probably didn't care a whole lot. Abby was his girlfriend, not Kate's BBF. There was really no reason for her to care too much, or really at all.

"I'm sure she will," Kate replied conversationally, "and she's got a great friend to help her through it, too, so hey, no sweat. They say that always helps."

Will nodded, feeling hollow inside, strange, like he shouldn't have been talking with Kate about this at all, or about anything. He didn't like the feeling. Kate was his co-worker, she wasn't a threat. He should have been able to talk to her without feeling this sense of hopelessness or loss or whatever it was, as if just by talking with her he was abandoning Abby, betraying her.

He stepped away from the table and sighed, reaching over to touch Kate's arm on his way past but stopping himself at the last moment and dropping his hand back to his side. "See you 'round," he said instead, and headed out.

"Yeah, yeah. See you 'round, Will."

.

Kate had the overwhelming urge to smack herself over the head, or binge on cheeseburgers, or run after Will and grab him and make him look at her so she could... She cut that thought off abruptly. It would get her nowhere, just as eyeing Will's butt appreciatively when no-one else was looking got her nowhere. Because the guy was taken. By a crazy girl or not, it didn't matter. He loved Crazy, he didn't love Kick-Ass.

Thinking about it, she supposed she should have omitted the whole 'baby boy' thing. It smacked of... something she didn't want it to smack of, anyway.

She stood up and walked over to the table, placing her hands over the spot where Will had clutched the table earlier, but the wood wasn't even warm, as if he'd stayed long enough for that. She'd freaked him out trying to be so cool and not all up in his face, What's up with your chica, boy-O? She'd been trying too hard for her own selfish reasons and he'd picked up on it, as he always did, and it had struck him as false and so he'd left, not wanting to put her to any more trouble than he already had, but, damn it, it made her mad! _He_ made her mad!

She was trying her hardest to be his friend, and all it did was push him away further, alienate him from her even more. She _hated_ that! It made her want to cry, and she never _wanted_ to cry! But Will did that to her. He made her want to do a lot of things she wasn't traditionally known for. And sometimes, he was the only thing that made her want to keep breathing.

She supposed it was only fair enough that he'd fled. He was cluey; he'd probably picked up on her needy vibes from a mile away and had decided it was wrong, cruel and unusual, to indulge them, to lead her on, so now they couldn't even hang out; they couldn't even hang out even though that was _all_ she wanted, even though it would have helped her so, so much in her struggle to transition him from potential lover to friend. Her body was saying they'd be so good together, but her mind just wanted to know him, to be a friend to him, and she always, _always_ played with her head first.

She trusted herself to never cross that line if it wasn't what they both wanted, but she just couldn't open her mouth and say those words to him because that would mean admitting she'd wanted him once, and sometimes still did, but especially when she was laying awake at night, alone in her bed, wondering if she'd be alone her whole life and if it was only fair, if her loneliness was part of the bed she'd made for herself long ago and now had to lie in.

She brushed away a tear from her cheek that had been bold enough to slip out of her eye and uncurled her fingers from the table and opened her eyes. Turning away from the table, she backed right back into it and shot Tesla a very dirty look for having been standing so close behind her without saying a word.

"No, you smell normal," he replied to her look, and she leapt at him, not much thinking on his words but only that they _sounded_ massively inappropriate, and was delighted to see him step back abruptly, looking slightly fearful, if only for a split second. She'd almost forgotten all about him, almost forgotten he might come by, annoyed at her for having eaten something he'd meant as a gift for Magnus.

She grinned at him. "Who knew you were so good at baking!" she taunted, hoping he took the bait and got even more annoyed, but there'd been a curious lack of annoyance on his face to begin with, and she couldn't help but wonder why that was, or why he cared what she smelled like. Was he planning on taking a bite out of her in return for her having eaten one of his cupcakes?

The thought was three quarters, In your dreams, Tessie baby!, and one quarter, Um, kinky much?, and that was wholly too strange for Kate to be thinking, especially seeing as she'd rather hoped it had been Will and not who it obviously was, so she decided it really was time to be kicking his ass.

Past time, in fact.

It really was just bad timing when she managed to gain the upper hand and throw him back against the fridge in mind of something rather painful to follow, and him, of course, grinning about it all, and the loveliness of it, when Will decided to drop in for a glass of water, mutter, "Ah, I'll just leave you two to it!" and hurry out again.

Kate swore in another language and smacked a hand on the fridge door next to Tesla.

"Oh, I see."

Kate swore again and let go of him, stalking out in a hurry and heading in the opposite direction Will had gone.

Tesla sighed, relaxing a little. "_Why can you not just keep these things to yourself, Nikola?_" he muttered, displeased with himself. He closed his eyes.

.

"You do realise that my name is Helen, and not Sexy," Helen's voice floated over from the doorway, and Nikola snapped open his eyes and stepped away from the fridge as though he'd not just been leaning against it morosely not less than a second ago.

"Absolutely not," he replied, with a smile. "In my mind, your name has always been Sexy. You cannot sway me as to otherwise, my dear."

She laughed, the light, joyful sound painful on his heartstrings. "Nikola, Nikola, Nikola!" she sighed, exasperated.

"Oh yes, my darling?"

"Really, you know I don't eat cupcakes. They're much too finicky. I'd only embarrass myself if I tried. Besides, I'd much rather you refrained from decimating my wine cellar than baking me sweets I'm sure you're hoping will confuse my mind in all of their sugary, chocolatey delightfulness. I'm not a little girl, Nikola. I am not so easily impressed." She sighed, the smile wiping off her face. "In any case, I'm not in the market for the sort of company you're thinking of, I'm afraid."

He frowned at her steadily. "You presume to know my mind, my lady."

She laughed, the sound high and slightly mocking, not at all like her earlier laugh. "Honestly, Nikola, enough of these childish games. They do very poorly for your countenance. Please, you embarrass yourself."

She waited for him to say something, to perhaps defend himself, but when he didn't, she went on. "I most vehemently despise the sort of person who attempts to implicate themselves into another's life through such unseemly means, through making them feel a party to one's own wrong. You bring it upon yourself, Nikola, and by your own hand, no less, and I will _not_ feel guilty for that. I refuse. You are no child. Do try to act your age, or go," she waved a hand, "go, be amongst the children if it pleases you so. I would not presume to stop you, even for your own sake.

"I may have once counted you a friend, but that time is passed, I see. If not by the careless manner in which you presume to manipulate me, to whatever ends, then by the careless manner in which you propel yourself and your conduct farther and farther from that of any sort of person I'd truthfully be unashamed to call my friend, Nikola." She shook her head, her expression a mixture of unhappiness and disgust.

"Just grow up.

"You tell me that you love me, you tell _yourself_ that you love me, but you _don't –_ and I don't love you. Never have. It is merely the idea you love, Nikola. It is always with you the idea, and then, when finally a thing comes to fruition and the full implication of its doing so is made known to you, you suddenly want nothing to do with it! 'Oh no, no, I didn't see this. No, no.' If I was a blatant fool, I might've been able to persuade myself to love you, but we both know I am not. I've made enough mistakes as it is; I won't add you as another merely out of pity, or out of wanting you to finally realise how simply awful we would be for one another, Nikola.

"Stop dreaming. Seriously, stop dreaming. Stop telling yourself it might happen one day. It will _never_ happen. I won't... let it... happen!" She stared at him, wide-eyed, willing him to say something, to show her he understood as wasn't as hurt as his wounded expression made out, but he was just silent, finally saying nothing. It made her feel like an even bigger monster than he, but she couldn't offer him any consolation, she just couldn't, couldn't back down, because everything she'd said she'd meant, she considered wholly the truth, and she wouldn't be a part to his deluding himself any longer.

She was through with it, in fact, and if he wasn't careful, she'd tell him she was through with him, too. She'd write him right out of her life and show him the door, too, nostalgia be damned! It wasn't right for him to treat her this way, and it wasn't right for her to let him, for whatever reason.

"Did you hear me, Nikola?"

He looked away from her jerkily, saying nothing, then just turned around and walked off, heading for the door across the room so he wouldn't have to pass by her on his way out.

"Damn it all! You, you _child_!" She turned on her heel and stormed out of the room, heading for her office, or better yet, to see Henry.

She couldn't be on her own right now. It wouldn't do good for her state of mind to have too much time to dwell on what she'd just told Nikola, or how he'd just walked out without saying a God damn word.

She just had to stop thinking about it – right now!

.

When she'd set off to find him, Abby hadn't expected to find Nikola sitting alone in one of the disused labs looking quite as devastated as he did. She'd thought he'd be plotting away at something or other, but he hadn't even seemed to notice her, and she wasn't exactly known for her grace, despite her heritage, or maybe heritage.

But there he was, she wasn't just seeing things, sort of rocking back and forth silently as if trying to convince himself not to cry or do anything stupid, or anything any _more_ stupid than whatever it was he'd already done.

It unnerved her. He was just... a person.

Trying hard to push aside her awkwardness – Oh, man, his eyes were just too shiny, and she did not want him to start crying; she'd only end up crying herself then, too; it was always very hard for her not to – so she decided to take the witty-slash-smartass approach instead, to psych herself up to it. _Well, finally. Welcome to the club!_

It was catty, but if she wasn't going to be catty, she was going to be cryey, and that just wasn't an option for her. She still had her pride, thank you very much.

She stepped further into the room, but not too far, because she was afraid her stomach wouldn't like being so close to the guy, and said, so that he'd be sure to hear, "Wow! You're really not so fearsome, after all." It wasn't _as_ bad as what she could have said, but she was _glad_ for that fact.

He didn't bother to look at her when he snarled, "_Be gone, she-devil!_", and she just pretended he hadn't said it in that tone, like maybe he'd be up and ripping her throat out the very next second she didn't skedaddle it out of there.

She didn't move from her spot. "Sorry, I don't speak Serbian. I have no idea what you just said. And, yeah, sorry, but I'm all out of tissues. My bad. What, are you, like, mad about something, so you've come down here to hide? That's not very..." she shied away from using the word 'vampire' because she had no idea what he was, in reality, and shrugged – _Sorry, Daddy_ – "Serbian."

She barely blinked and then he was up in her face, glaring at her hatefully like maybe she'd just insulted him deeply, which she'd actually, truthfully meant to do, but maybe not quite _deeply_. "And what would you know, _little girl_, about my people?"

She rolled her eyes to the ceiling, feigning disinterest, then lowered them to his face once more. He was still angry as Hell. "Oh, boy, your people!" she said. "Mmm." She nodded, for no apparent reason, and reached out a hand to touch his shoulder, hoping very much he didn't just rip her arm out of its socket for even daring. "Listen, buddy-"

He stopped her hand before she even got near to his shoulder, holding her wrist painfully tight in his hand, the fingernails too long and much too dark. "_You don't get to touch me!_" he snarled, the meagre light somehow still managing to glint off his too sharp teeth and the blacks of his eyes to above-satisfactory sinister effect.

"Oops." She chewed her bottom lip. "But, ah, you know, I am anyway!"

He growled at her angrily from the back of his throat, the unearthly sound reverberating through each and every one of her nerve-endings, and it was hard for her not to shiver, or throw up on him.

She was sure she'd turned a rather unflattering shade of pale, but ignored the thought and said, "Woo! Yeah, that'll do it. Just puts a girl smack bang in the middle of the _right_ mood," she winked at him, "if you know what I mean."

"What do you want?" he growled, laying off of the vibes the smallest amount.

"Well, it sure ain't you, I gotta say," she returned. "You might be so kind as to take your paw off me first, then I might consider telling you."

The look on his face was vaguely insulted, so she grinned and whispered, "Paw!", gnashing her teeth at him. She had a feeling, in this instance, wetting herself would not help. She needed to be proactive, needed to hide any fear she felt and act as if she'd seen it all before. She didn't have time to consider how bitchy she was getting, because it was her life on the line. If her attitude got her through this thing, she could go crawling off to the shrink later on.

For now, she needed to focus.

He let go of her wrist, grudgingly.

She laid on the sweetness, frowning as if she'd never in a million years expected such a kindness from him. She played the dumber than dumb high school girl everyone finds just slightly obnoxious even if she's totally smokin' hot. "_Oh, thank you!_"

"_What do you want?_" he hissed, growing tired of her little games.

She tilted her head to the side slightly and rubbed her stinging wrist. "I just find vampires a turn-on, you know," she confided in the most honest-sounding voice she could muster, and caught his eye pointedly. "That's what you are, aren't you? I mean, I'm so not into, like, ghouls and shit. Ew, no! You couldn't _pay_ me to rock that par-tay! Ever since I, um, saw that episode of _Supernatural_. Um, _no_! Call me a geek, or whatever, a prude, I don't care. Ghouls are not on the menu... in any way, really." She closed and opened her hand, happy to see that it still worked, even with the pain, but Nikola wasn't saying squat. "Getting awkward, now," she admitted.

"You want to know what I am?" he asked, his voice completely human once more, but sounding oddly unlike him.

She clicked her fingers, feeling the vibration of it all the way up her arm, painfully. "Yes! God!" She sighed heavily. "That's all I want, Nicky. All I want. I'm not a groupie, I don't want you to turn me; I don't want you to get heavy on my ass. I'm merely curious. It's a kind of... _thing_... I do, when I'm taking time off from Nasty Bitch. Curious Bitch. Well, there you go. You learnt something new, and so did I." She frowned. "Seriously, you're not a ghoul, right?"

"I am not."

She laughed nervously. "I'm massively relieved to hear that. You have no idea. Woo. Er, okay. Now I feel sorta awkward." She looked around them quickly. "So, um, do you have, like, a... nest, or something? You know, where you hang out when you're not here, with your... brethren? 'Cause that'd be cool."

He stared at her with narrowed eyes and she had the sinking feeling he was onto her. She'd been waiting for him to guess, dreading the moment he finally realised just how thoroughly un-Abby like she'd been behaving, but she'd been hoping he wouldn't get it so fast, not knowing her very well. Maybe he had some vamp skills that helped out with stuff like that, or maybe he was naturally suspicious of chicks who called themselves bitches and said 'like' more than twice in one day – it really didn't matter.

"That's cool. You don't have to tell me," she told him, as a wrap-up to their conversation, but when she tried to back away he snatched up her already sore wrist and held onto it fast.

"Suddenly, with the curiosity to know my every business, Abby. I find myself suspicious. Tell me-"

"Whoa, whoa, um..." She blinked. "I... I'm not going to tell anyone, I swear. I... I mean anyone who doesn't already know, like, say, the FBI. I won't breathe a word of our conversation to anyone, promise."

"Why do you want to know about vampires?" he rephrased, a little of the old sparkle returning to his eyes as he leant closer, his face strangely more pale than before.

She tried telling herself it was just the light, it wasn't that great, nor that flattering, but she was being to feel oddly woozy and she couldn't feel her toes anymore. She shifted the tiniest bit, bumping her right foot against her left, but she couldn't feel that, either. She had a very bad feeling about this whole thing, like maybe he was hungry and she was dinner. Nobody, least of all him, would be very pleased about that when he ended up kicked out on his ass for chowing on the guests, but she just didn't trust him to give a damn about that at this point, or any point, really.

She tried to tug her wrist out of his hand but it wasn't budging, it just hurt even more. "You're hurting me." He didn't so much as flinch. He just didn't give a damn, she supposed. "Okay, fine, you wanna know why I asked, Mr. Cleverness Himself! I asked because I think I've met... y... another vampire before! Jeez, way to lay it on heavy. You can just stop wh-" She swayed, her knees feeling very weak, then feeling nothing at all, "whatever... it is you're..." The world started to get smaller, then red and yellow, and then just very dotty, everything suddenly cast in shades of grey. She thought she might throw up, but then everything went black and she ceased to care.

.

She woke with a start, scrambling to her feet and falling back down the first time, then just succeeding the second, with a little help from the wall. She still felt like puking, she was still in the same dingy, sparsely lit laboratory, but it was suddenly ridiculously, ridiculously cold. She had a feeling it wasn't really so cold, but _she_ was.

She glanced around her quickly, searchingly, the sound of her heavy breathing loud in the otherwise quiet room, and leaned more heavily on the wall. When her eyes finally came to rest on Nikola's, they were their normal colour again, human eyes. "I will kick your ass, boy!" she scowled. "When I get away from this wall, so help me God, you will be sorry you ever laid a hand on me!" She laughed irrationally, but not even that was enough to affect any response from him.

She waved a hand his way as if to say, I don't care, and lurched sideways, banging into the wall with a painful thud. "I thought we were friends, you and me, Wally," she mumbled to the wall. "What's with the suddenly wanting to be Nikola's pal. You know, I don't like it down here, I think I'm just going to go now." She pushed herself away from the wall slowly, both hands pressed flat to the wall, wincing at the pain travelling up and down her arm from her sore wrist, and quickly returned, leaning close to the wall with wide eyes. "Not good, not good. Definitely butt-kicking in order." She started to inch down the wall, then sat down on the floor, rubbing her wrist once more.

Glancing off over Nikola's way, she shouted, "You're a real brat, Nicky! I hope you know that! And don't forget it! You bloody brat..."

She started to rock back and forth, not even caring if Nikola thought it amusing or not. Just stuff him! "Daddy, can you come and get me now? You said you would, if I really needed you. You said you'd-" She put a hand over her mouth. "I feel sick, Daddy. I don't... I don't think you were one..." her head flopped forward, as if it couldn't keep itself up straight, but she lifted her chin back up, her eyes rolling strangely about, and tried to remember what she'd been saying. "I don't think you were one of the bad ones..." Her head kept trying to drop backwards and finally she just let it happen, let herself fall to the floor and lie there, as cold as it was. After a moment, she curled up into a ball as best as she could. "Why did I never... meet Mummy?" she asked quietly, because her voice wasn't her friend just then and didn't want to speak any louder. "Did you send her away because she wasn't like us? Or..." It was hard to keep her eyes open but she still wanted to. She wanted to be able to see if her Daddy came, like he'd said. "Did you... did you _eat_ her?"

With a painful heave, she threw up all over the floor. "I'm never going to live... this down..." she mumbled, and threw up again.

She was really hating Nikola's guts at the moment.

.

"You believe your father was a vampire? Believe me, child, I highly, _highly_ doubt that."

Abby clutched at her chest, doubled over with the pain of vomiting up something that wasn't there. The only thing she'd had to eat all day were two cupcakes and about six or seven cups of coffee. It wasn't healthy, but she'd just felt too shitty to eat anything else.

Someone was speaking to her, but through the haze of nausea, weakness and pain, she didn't really know who, or get a whole lot of what they were saying, either. All she really knew was that she was cold, _really_ cold, and they were warm, whoever they were. Their hand on her back was warm, comforting.

She let herself lean back, closer to the source of warmth, her eyes fluttering closed. Her chest didn't hurt so much any more, or maybe she just couldn't tell anymore. It didn't seem very important anyway. She was warmer than she'd been before, and that was all that mattered.

She suddenly remembered that her father had promised to come if she ever really needed him and opened her eyes wide, tilting her head back to try and get a look at who it was holding her. For some reason, she thought she'd recognise him. "Daddy? Daddy?"

She couldn't really see who it was but the hopefulness in her voice died. If it had been her father, he'd have said so. He'd have said something, at least. Even if he didn't understand her because she was slurring so badly. He'd have let her know he'd come back, just like he'd said. He'd tell her he loved her.

It obviously wasn't Daddy.

She closed her eyes and felt the silent tears run down her face anyway. At least they were warm.

.

Nikola started to feel bad for the way he'd treated her, even if she'd acted like a complete and utter fool herself. She was, after all, just a girl. A lying, conniving girl, perhaps, but still a girl, and now she was whimpering for her daddy whom she seemed to believe a vampire and if the whimpering itself wasn't disgusting enough, the fact that she thought her father one of his kind was. It was all really quite disgusting, and he'd always considered himself to have quite a high tolerance for things like that, but apparently Helen wasn't the only one he'd been deluding, he'd also been deluding himself.

He was still fairly certain he loved Helen, despite how much she'd hurt him with her words. She was right, he supposed, he was a child, but even children could love. She'd forgotten that, or had been unwilling to even consider it an option after what had happened to Ashley. It was Ashley's love for her that had killed her, and now Helen would be forever scarred in that regard, would always forget to consider that maybe he was a child, and a brat, as Abby had put it, but he wasn't inhuman. He had feelings, too, and some of them extended behind himself.

He patted Abby's hair and waited for her to wake up. Really, he hadn't thought he'd been that hard on her, but maybe he'd been wrong, maybe he'd neglected to temper himself quite as much as he should have, in his anger.

He could very well imagine that as the case, and it hurt a little because hadn't Helen told him it was this very same behaviour that drove a wedge between them, and now how was he going to explain all of this to her, how was he going to make it better?

He tried not to feel too dejected, but maybe he'd have to find someplace to leave Abby where the others would find her and quietly slink away, back into obscurity for a hundred years or so, until Helen had had enough time to forgive him, or at least let bygones be bygones. He was really starting to think it his only option, and it did hurt him, but the thought of hurting Helen was worse, and to her face – no, he just couldn't do it.

He got a tighter grip on Abby and hauled them both up to their feet, his mind made up. He'd take her somewhere the others would find her and leave. It didn't matter if he stayed; Helen would never love him the way he loved her and if all he did was hurt her time and again he would do best to forget he'd ever loved her to begin with.

Lifting Abby up into his arms, he was glad to put some distance between the lab and himself. He didn't very much enjoy the smell of puke.

.

He'd just found a place to set the girl down and was doing just that when his eyes came to rest on one of her hands, clutching weakly to his arm, and he dropped her abruptly the rest of the way to the floor with a thud and backed away, coming up against the nearest wall, still unable to look away from her.

He'd just assumed her to be a deluded child, a cute but savage and ever so messed-up little girl, but her fingernails said otherwise. They'd been white before, and now they weren't. They were black and, though no longer than they'd been before, they were very sharp.

He listened to his heart thudding loudly in his chest and wondered if it was true, if it could possibly be true; if her father could have been a vampire and in a way, she was, too.

N-no. It was something else, had to be. When he'd met her, he hadn't sensed she was like him, and even though he'd thought her scent strange, it wasn't right for a vampire. She had to be something else.

She hadn't even blocked his attempts to use his vampiric abilities against her, and then she'd gotten sick. She hadn't even recovered yet. How could she be like him? She was nothing like any vampire should be, and she had bad taste in beverages.

He slowly stepped away from the wall, then, when she stayed lying on the floor and didn't even twitch, he went to her side, falling down heavily on his knees, and brushed some hair from her face. "Miss Abigail?"

She didn't stir, and he could see the darkness slowly leaching from her fingernails, could see the sharp points dulling, disappearing.

He touched her cheek gently, feeling how clammy her pale skin was, then someone grabbed his wrist.

Abby was glaring right at him, her hand wrapped around his wrist very tightly. "Get your damn paws off of me, Nikola!" she whispered angrily. "I don't trust you anymore, and when Will finds me-"

He tugged his wrist out of her grasp and placed a hand over her heart, feeling for her heartbeat. It was slow, weak. He was slightly surprised Abby had woken up to reprimand him for touching her, surprised she wasn't slurring any longer as she had been before.

"I was kidding, you silly thing," she said, and her voice started to slur once more, as if on cue. "You can just stop feeling me up now, Nicky, because I'm not in the least interested in you. You know I have a boyfriend, and I like him very much. Please stop touching me, Kola. I don't like it."

He took his hand back and merely watched as her eyes fluttered closed once more. Well, her recovery had been short-lived. He supposed he was to be glad, though. If she'd really been better, she may have started in kicking his butt, as she'd promised, and he'd probably have to let her, too.

He shouldn't have been so harsh on her, he knew it.

.

He must have fallen asleep – got lost in his thoughts – because suddenly he heard heavy footsteps and Kate materialised beside him, looking worried. He couldn't tell if she was worried about him or worried about Abby, or maybe the both of them, but then she was talking to Abby, asking her all sorts of questions, then, when Abby stayed silent, she started, ridiculously, to haul Abby up into her arms.

He frowned, shooting Kate a funny look. "How is that going to work?" he asked.

"It would work – if you quit grumbling and grinning and helped!" Kate burst, grabbing a hold of Abby when she started to slip back down to the floor and, with a loud thud, ending up stuck underneath her. She groaned. "Abby, honey..." She whined. "Please wake up!"

Nikola stood up and looked around them, hoping to see the others somewhere about, but it was just the three of them. "Did you tell the others you'd found Abigail?"

Kate laughed, then abruptly stopped. "Oh God! Oh God, Hank, you can fall on me any day! I think I'm suffocating."

"Kate, did you tell the others you'd found Abigail?"

Kate rolled her eyes. "What do you think, genius? Yes, I gaudy well told them. A little help wouldn't go astray, when you've done yapping, of course," she mocked.

He easily lifted Abby off her, pulling her once more into his arms. "All you had to do was ask," he told her.

She picked herself up off the floor, taking deep breaths and brushing herself down roughly. "Yeah, sure." She started coughing and took another deep breath, shakily, her hands trembling awkwardly on her legs where she'd propped them.

Nikola looked away from her, thinking that as she was Kate she may well be embarrassed by her... He wasn't sure he'd call it clumsiness, but he'd definitely go for stupidity. Very obviously, she'd never have been able to lift Abby all by herself.

"What's wrong with her, do you know?" Kate gasped, still battling with getting her breathing under control. "What about you? You look fine, but Hell if I know? How do you feel?"

"Fine," he replied plainly.

Kate waved ahead of them. "We should move out. This way."

He almost raised an eyebrow at her terminology, but decided to let it go. She didn't look in great shape, for whatever reason.

"Do you know what's wrong with her? Were you attacked?"

"I don't know," he lied, detesting himself for it but still managing to get the words out clearly and without much hardship. "I just found her like this. I was going to leave and seek help, but you appear to have saved me the trouble, Miss Freelander."

Kate nodded, coughing some more. "Save the 'Miss' crap for someone who gives a damn, Tesla. Your charm might work on Magnus, but it falls seriously flat where I'm concerned. Abby's not the only one who's been incommunicado for hours, you know. For all I know, you could've attacked her yourself."

He stopped and turned to look at her. She seemed appreciative that they'd taken a break, which he found odd. Usually she'd have bounced back to her former self by now. "For what reason?" he asked. "If I did indeed attack her, why?"

Kate threw up her hands, swaying as she did, and set her hands down by her sides somewhat more carefully. "Beats me, Dracula."

He laughed, then he had to set Abby down on the floor and catch Kate because she really was headed for a collision course with the floor and a nasty concussion if he didn't. She didn't even give him a dirty look: she was already unconscious.

He had the awful feeling this was his fault too, that when Kate had touched Abby her vampiric abilities had kicked in somehow and she'd somehow siphoned off some, or a good portion, of Kate's energy. Kate was looking paler by the second, whilst Abby's skin was slowly but surely returning to its former complexion.

When Helen, Will and Henry arrived, he merely shrugged a shoulder and relayed Kate's comment of earlier to them, as if they'd asked for a diagnosis. "Beats me. I'd just found Abby when Kate arrived and attempted to wake her. When that didn't work, she thought carrying her off to the infirmary would be a good idea. I wasn't so enthused for the idea, but Kate will be Kate. We made it this far before Kate collapsed, too. Incidentally, I feel fine, but you may want to err on the side of caution and refrain from touching them directly." Catching up to the rest of his team, Big Guy shot him what he supposed could have been a dirty look. "It's just a suggestion."

Helen just shook her head and instructed the team to heed his advice until they knew what was going on and how to remedy it. She didn't look at him twice the whole time.

He had a feeling she suspected him to have something to do with the whole thing, suspected him of having a tantrum over her earlier comments to him and deciding to get back at her, or her team, who, as per the fact that they were rather 'ordinary', he wasn't especially fond of. He took the assumption in stride, as it was partly true, and decided she was right.

He did need to work on his people skills. It was very possible even Johnny wouldn't have done something like this, and that was very, very sad. It was sad that he, Nikola Tesla, had managed to so spectacularly screw things up when he'd always considered himself _in control_; in control of his abilities and his emotions, when he'd always thought of himself as the more human, or at least the more conscionable, of the pair, and now he learned that that wasn't strictly to be held as a given truth, but rather a provisional one. He didn't even have the luxury of a believable excuse, or any excuse, as John did. He wasn't brave or noble, he'd not even tried to fight his reactions, he'd just let them take their course. He couldn't bear to think about what he might think up next, might take a notion to next, it was just too horrifying.

He just knew that if he couldn't control himself, well, then he could throw out any notions of love or consideration for another living being because, quite frankly, they would be no more than a sham, a lie told to placate himself, and he would be little more than a monster. And if he was to be a monster, he would sooner die than slowly suffer through losing every one of his human sensibilities, one by one, until there were none left, until he could very well find himself Helen's murderer and find nothing wrong with being so.

He was vaguely aware of following the group to the infirmary but didn't really return from his thoughts until it was well after midnight and even Will had retired to bed after finding the seat just too uncomfortable and sustaining a possible – very likely – concussion after an altercation with said uncomfortable chair.

He'd been given the all clear by Helen hours ago, and though she was still to talk _to_ him rather than _at_ him, he wasn't angry at her any longer; he could barely even muster up any feelings of hurt at her plain words of earlier. She'd been right, entirely, and now all he wanted to do was to apologise, to take it all back, to feel less alien in his own body, to maybe trust himself a little once more, but that just wasn't possible. He'd done a lot of things in his time on earth, but now he truly understood that he had a problem drawing the line. In truth, he didn't deserve Helen's forgiveness. He didn't even deserve her understanding. Oh, John did, he saw that now, but he did not. Not him, not Nikola Tesla.

He was a true monster. He'd had ever opportunity to change himself for the better, and he'd turned each and every one of his chances down, all the while consoling himself with the thought that he wasn't the worst thing out there, he was still capable of love, after all; all the while lying to himself a little more each day.

It would probably have been more fitting if Helen never again set eyes on him; poetic, almost. She was much too good for him; much, much too good. He hadn't even the right, in his mind, to mourn losing her. He didn't deserve those feelings, shouldn't have abided them the time of day.

He was, after all, a self-made monster.

And compassion, consideration, respect, love; none of these things were a monster's prerogative, none of them made any impression. They were for lesser beings; they were merely to be manipulated as part of the game. They were only real when they were fake, false, a made-up fantasy, and at other times, they ceased to exist.

He was a monster, but even that he was lousy at, couldn't get right. Lost in his thoughts, he'd dared to look for a solution, _any_ solution, but had come up empty on all fronts, as Helen herself had. He could not undo this thing he had done. Man or monster, he was ruined.

While he'd been declared 'fine', Abby and Kate had only seemed to get worse. Neither had woken since being admitted to the infirmary and though Helen had stayed later than any of the others with the exception of Will, whom she'd finally had to send off for some decent sleep after she'd found him making himself at home on the corner when she'd popped in to check on her patients last, even she had eventually turned in for the night, perhaps realising that with a clear mind in the morning she'd be able to do much more than she would with a clouded, listless one – theoretically speaking, anyway.

Nikola had stayed out of sight, for the most part, running over his options endlessly in his mind, until now. Now that the other were gone, he found himself coming out of hiding and heading for the infirmary. Standing at the door, he imagined casting an eye over the scene, and finally choosing to drift over to Abby's bed. He imagined sitting down in the chair Will had vacated, reaching over to touch Abby's strangely dull, limp hair, then thinking better of it and doing it anyway. He imagined telling himself that just because she was a vampire didn't mean she was diseased, and wasn't he also a vampire? Imagined brushing a hand over her cold, clammy forehead and swallowing a sigh, trying to find the right words for an apology.

A blur of movement across the room snapped him awkwardly out of his thoughts and he was confused and slightly relieved to see that Abby was awake, until he realised, with a feeling like ice running through his veins, that all was not as it should be. She'd moved much too fast, and almost without a sound, and was now merely standing at the side of Kate's bed, eyeing the unconscious woman with her head tilted at an odd, almost predatory angle.

He was on the verge of calling out to her when it struck him that her steady gaze wasn't _almost_ predatory, but very much so.

Abby stepped closer to Kate, tilting her head the other way, and Nikola told himself to move, to intervene before anything _really_ bad happened, and then told himself again. Abby was just reaching for Kate when he finally managed to kick himself into action, crossing the room and stopping by her side in no more time than it took to take a breath.

Abby snarled and looked around at him, her eyes completely taken over by blackness, and despite everything, despite being a vampire himself, the sight slightly frightened him. He wanted to say, _Easy there, girl_, offering a placating hand, but he was afraid she'd bite his hand off, or worse. Afraid that once she was done with him, she'd finish what she'd started with Kate and then move on to the rest of the Sanctuary's residents.

He could feel the strength in her, trembling underneath the surface, tenuous, at best, but fierce, so fierce, could feel her desire for more, more. She was weak, but she wasn't weak-willed. She wasn't arrested by qualms. The part of her that cared for such things, the part of her known as Abby, was asleep, lost in a deep, dark, airless place.

She was not Abby, she was not even close to one of his mindless drones. Her mind was filled with one thing, and nobody could tell her otherwise.

Nikola was afraid he'd have to hurt her again, just to stop her, and then she surprised him. She looked at him with her black eyes, straight in the eye, and in a quietly anguished rasp, she whispered, "Help me!" And though he hadn't the first clue how to go about doing that, he would have done anything at that moment to give her back what he'd taken from her – to give her back her humanity. And prove to himself that he was not just a monster, but a human being, too.

The next thing he knew for sure was that he'd taken hold of her arm and pulled her closer, that it had felt somehow insubstantial held in his grasp, but it wasn't really.

And then there was the pain, and the blood, and Helen, telling him he was going to be alright but not really telling _him_, telling the room instead and saying nothing about it if he chose to listen, to just listen. He tried to recall to mind her smile, but all he saw were flowers, dead and wilted, entire forests laid to waste, and blood, so much blood, and little Ashley, no more than six years old, sitting in the school nurse's office and trying not to cry because of all the blood, because she'd done something wrong, something bad, because her tooth had fallen out. The school nurse returning from the main office after having rung 'home' to no answer, her shoes loud on the floor, telling Ashley, "There's no need to worry, Ashley, it's entirely normal. Your tooth's dead now; it doesn't have any use to you anymore. You'll get a new one soon, you'll see. You can throw it away, if you want. It's dead now. It came out and now it doesn't have a home anymore, but that's okay because that's the way it was always meant to be." Ashley, trying to comprehend how 'dead' meant it was okay to throw something away, how it could possibly mean 'the end'; the end, full stop; all the while remembering when things had been different, when her tooth had still lived, had still had a home, served a purpose.

It hadn't mentioned to her being sick, it hadn't even mentioned leaving home, and now it was dead, just dead, and she couldn't understand that – couldn't understand 'that's the way it was always meant to be', without even a word of warning. And then the thought, suddenly, of the pain. Nagging, annoying but not so bad just yet. The thought of how she'd ignored it, other things on her mind; and what would have happened if she hadn't ignored it, if she'd known that the pain meant her tooth was packing up and getting ready to leave, to die? Had she failed it? Had her inactivity, her naivety led to its death, in the end? And there, bright as the blood shining on her fingers, drying into the creases in her palm the school nurse had yet to wipe away: guilt. Guilt and pain.

I did it. It's all my fault.

The school nurse. "Here, darling, let's put that in the bin." "Just wait here, sweetie, I won't be a moment." Leaving to call her mom again, her shoes clacking loudly in annoyance – why didn't the mom pick up the damn phone? And what was wrong with this kid that she didn't know what it meant when a tooth fell out? What was her mom, loopy, plain stupid? For the love of God, why did she always get saddled with the stupid, crazy ones?

And the kid, just staring blankly.

He remembered Ashley, her eyes fixed on the blood changing colour in her hand the way paint did when it dried, wondering if when she died she'd be thrown away like her tooth, too; like so much trash. Wanting to go to the bin and say, _Goodbye, tooth. I'll miss you even though you're dead. Please don't be mad at me._

He remembered the way she didn't look up from her bloody hands when he stepped into the room, thinking that, yes, she was most certainly John's daughter, he could see the resemblance in her, could see her mother in her, too. Remembered thinking it was enough to see her, this little girl; there was no need to bother Helen, to upset her unnecessarily with his presence. He'd only come to see the child, after all.

Then he'd moved closer, kneeling down in front of her so she wouldn't have to look up at him and wonder if he was another grown-up who'd come to say, "It's okay, but it's still your fault. But it's okay." "What a mess, but you'd better hurry off out of sight. Nobody wants to see all that blood; it's upsetting."

Tears were shimmering in her eyes, but she wasn't going to cry. She didn't cry in front of strangers because it made them feel as though she was trying to force them into something, into feeling bad or comforting her or anything at all they were thinking at the time. It was only okay to cry with Mummy or Henry because when she was sad or hurt they would try to help make it better.

The school nurse hadn't done that.

He remembered picking up her hands and asking, "Does it still hurt?" and watching her shake her head carefully to say 'no', but ever mindful not to dislodge her tears, not to put anything on him he wouldn't want. It wasn't nice to hurt other people, even if you were hurting too, even if you didn't mean to hurt them at all. It was a bad, bad thing to do.

She stared back at him steadily, saying nothing about how he was holding her hands and maybe that wasn't allowed, and she didn't know him, and was he going to be angry with her mummy for letting her tooth fall out, or was it just her fault, and would she get punished for it – and what about Mummy and Henry, who hurt too when she hurt? She wanted to ask, _Do you really have to tell Mummy? Maybe if I don't smile too much, she won't even notice._ And, _Why did my tooth fall out and die when yours didn't? Am I sick? The school nurse said I could get a new one; does Mummy have to pay for it, or is it free? Or...?_

He remembered that when a single tear ran down her cheek, he'd brushed it away before he'd even thought twice about it. He remembered telling her, "I'm glad to hear that it doesn't hurt anymore, but it might hurt again later." He hadn't really been sure what to say, but figured anything was better than nothing as long as it wasn't, "It's okay. We've had to throw it away and you've lost some blood, but not to worry, it's okay. It happens."

She sniffed and asked quietly, "Why?" and he'd smiled, touching her cheek ever so briefly with the backs of his fingers.

"That's a good question. Well, you see, when you're young, as you are now, and you're still changing, and growing, some things stay and some things change. Hmm?" He patted the end of her nose and she smiled, at long last.

He smiled back. "When you're small, you have two sets of teeth, one you can see, and one you can't, and the ones you can't see have to wait for the ones you can see to leave before they can come out and show themselves to you. There's a bit of pain involved, but it's all for a good cause. You see, your first set of teeth are your baby teeth, and your second set are you grown-up teeth. When you're a baby your teeth don't need to be as... strong as when you grow up because you don't do a lot of chewing, and you have a tiny little baby mouth, but then you start to grow up and everything gets bigger but your teeth don't so much. They're still baby teeth. So, when it's time, they fall out and your grown-up teeth take their place, and they don't mind a lot of chomping, as long as you take good care of them and don't forget to brush them. If they get hurt, there aren't any more teeth waiting to take their place. Questions?"

"Do _you_ have a baby?"

"Good question. Dear, dear, you are a clever young Miss, aren't you?" He smiled at her.

She smiled back, waiting for his answer.

"No, I don't have any children. But I do like them. They don't expect you to be anyone other than yourself, which I think, sadly, some adults forget. They don't always want you to be yourself; they want you to be who they think you should be, instead. But that isn't always what's best for us, hmm? Sometimes even we forget who we are and then we just get so confused that it hurts and you don't even know if you want to be yourself anymore, or anyone, and that's very, very sad. If you ever feel like that, _ever_, it's always best to talk about it with someone who cares about you very much. We all have a place in the universe. All of us."

She sniffed. "Not my tooth. Not any more."

"Even your tooth. To you, your tooth is dead. That's what you've been told, but to your tooth, it's not dead, it's just beginning its new life. It's not a tooth anymore, but one day it will be something else."

"What will it be?" she asked, watching him wipe the blood off her hands which were surprisingly normal underneath, like they had been before, but maybe a little sadder.

"Well, we don't know yet. We'll just have to wait and see. But – yes, good grief, but there's a 'but' – but the thing is, hmmm, we can't always see when something changes into something else, or when something starts a new life. It happens, all the time, but we can't always see it. Sometimes, you can't see the change in the thing itself, but in how the change in it affects the things around it and changes them. Like," he smiled at her once more, "your mood. Before, you were sad, but you were trying not to show it because you didn't want to make anyone else sad, too. But now, I hope, you're not so sad anymore. I can't know for sure unless I ask you, but I can look at you and see, for instance, you're smiling. Oh, you're not." He frowned, wondering how he'd missed something as big as that, and she suddenly smiled, laughing happily. He cleared his throat, grinning back at her. "As I was saying, you can't _see_ a person's mood because it has to do with feelings – you know, all that tingly stuff – but you can see how it affects their outward appearance and their body language. If you're sad, you're all gloomy and you frown a lot," he demonstrated a sad frown, making Ashley giggle, "and if you're happy," he nodded at her, "you smile a lot and you're perfectly happy to say 'hello' to someone else instead of just," he shook his head, glancing away for a moment, "'I don't want to talk to you'," he grumbled.

He smiled. "Now, for the stuff you really wanted to ask but forgot to ask. I'm very good at this, I should point out. Forgetting to ask, and then, 'Argh! Why didn't I ask?' Now that you're grown-up teeth are starting to show, does that mean you're officially a grown-up? And when do I get to decide what's for dinner?"

Ashley laughed. "I'm not a grown-up yet," she told him. "I'm still a kid."

"Mmm-hmm, as am I."

"No you're not!"

"Oh," he held up a finger, "but we all are, my dear. When we grow up, we don't forget we were once a child, though some people try very hard to do so and often cause a lot of trouble for themselves along the way, but we also remember that we're an adult, too, and so – expectations," he said blandly. "I don't... I don't do very well with expectations, least of all the ones I make for myself. You know what I'm talking about. Don't cry, babies cry. You're a big girl, you're not a crybaby. How much nonsense is that? Babies cry for a reason, so so do bigger people, too! You don't have to cry, but we all feel better when we do, don't we? Afterwards, we think, _Ooo, bonus! Free hugs!_" He scratched his neck. "Yeah, I have a slight weakness for hugs. It's a work in progress."

Ashley laughed. "Me, too!"

"Are you serious?"

She nodded.

"Get outta town, kiddo!"

She nodded again, smiling more widely.

"Okay, okay, what do they call it these days?" He held up his hand, wiggling his fingers, and she leant forward to smack her palm against his.

"High five!"

"High-? That's what they call it? Phew!" He brushed a hand over his forehead in relief. "Thank you, I think you just saved me from about a year's worth of embarrassment. Very close call, mind you. Which, I think means I owe you a debt of gratitude. I don't really have any sweets – I'm looking after my teeth, congrats me," he frowned unhappily, " – but I can give you something else. What about a hug? Consolation prize?"

She grinned and leapt up out of her chair and threw her arms around him and she wasn't even a little bit sad anymore.

When everything started to get a little crazy and off-kilter, Nikola held onto that hug, and the one time he hadn't made someone cry, or yell at him, or want to shoot him. He held onto his friend, in happier times.

.

Helen froze in the doorway, alarmed at the sight of so much blood, then some overriding instinct seemed to kick in and her eyes surveyed the room, taking in the pertinent details. Abby was out of bed, covered in blood, and huddled into the farthest corner from Kate and all the bloodshed; Kate was laying in bed, hopefully asleep – yes, maybe, her chest was still rising and falling – and the blood... was probably Nikola's, if she was _really_ lucky. No sign of anyone else, or any_thing_ else.

She hurried into the room and made a beeline for Kate, checking her pulse quickly and deciding that it was much better than it had been some hours earlier, and her colour seemed to be returning to normal, too. Apart from some blood on her face, as if someone had touched her face with blood on their hand, she appeared unharmed. Helen swallowed a sigh of relief, hoping she didn't turn out to be wrong, and crossed the room to where Abby was huddled into the corner.

"Abby?"

Abby twitched involuntarily at the sudden noise but didn't look around at her.

Helen spoke a little softer the second time. "Abby?"

Abby said nothing.

Helen looked her over, cataloguing what she could see and filing away questions for later. She didn't want to jump to any hasty conclusions about what had happened, but from the looks of it Abby had had some kind of episode and presumedly attacked Nikola, who'd just happened to be hanging out in the infirmary even though she'd told him he was fine, _of course_.

"I killed him."

Straining to catch the younger woman's whispered words, Helen refrained from glancing in Nikola's direction and said, "I'm sure you did not. Nikola has an unhealthy habit of refusing to die. I suppose it really would put a crimp in his plans for world domination."

Abby choked on a hiccup, tears pouring down her face, and pressed her forehead against the cold wall. "Did I... h-hurt... Kate?"

"No." Though she didn't know that for sure, Helen couldn't help trying to console the young woman in some way. She knew very well the way Nikola could be. Sometimes, he just put himself in all the wrong positions, and sometimes he was just asking for it. She couldn't deny it, even if she'd wanted to, she couldn't. "Kate's fine," she told Abby. "Are you hurt?"

Abby hiccuped again, miserably. "N-no." She started to shiver.

"I'm just going to get you something to keep you warm," Helen told her, moving away and standing up. "A blanket. I hope that's okay with you." She walked back to the bed as swiftly and smoothly as she could and snatched up Abby's blanket, bringing it back with her to offer to Abby.

Abby didn't take the blanket.

"Abby, can you tell me what happened?"

"I was... h-hungry... I think I hurt K... Kate. And I hurt Nikola. He was just... standing there... and I was so hungry. I wanted him... to help... but I was..." she hiccuped, "hungry..." She was still shivering, but now she was opening and closing her hands convulsively. She stared down at her hands suddenly, her movements jerky, rough.

"I've brought you a blanket, to keep you warm," Helen offered gently.

Abby shook her head suddenly, dragging her eyes away from her bloody hands, and leapt to her feet in a surprisingly swift, graceful move.

Helen fought down a surge of dread mounting in her throat.

"I... can help... like... he helped... Kate... I... can..."

Helen stood up as quickly as she could without alarming Abby and reached for her arm, hoping it wasn't the wrong choice. She just wanted Abby to look at her, to meet her eye. She was rambling.

Abby pulled her arm away and scooted across the room, kneeling down beside Nikola and shaking his arm, as if that might wake him. "How do you do it? How do you help?"

Helen approached slowly and stopped a short distance away, directing her gaze to Abby's face. "Nikola... helped Kate?"

Abby nodded convulsively, shaking Nikola's arm again. "Daddy... could help people, too. He... helped me..." She smacked Nikola's arm. "How do I help, dummy?"

"Your father was a vampire?" Helen asked.

"My real father. I think... he ate Mummy. Or maybe..." she choked, "I did... I don't remem... ber... I don't remember... her... Her... smell..."

"I understand."

"Daddy l... left. I was sick. I... woke up in h-hospital and he was gone... I don't know where... or... Maybe someone k-killed him?"

"Are you still hungry?"

She shook her head, punching Nikola's arm. "He's so stupid! Nicky, you stupid dummy, I'm going to..." She fell short, not quite sure what she could do that would really annoy him. "Get up! Get up! You're a vampire – you can't die! You're already dead – and I don't care if that's really a load of crap! Get up, stupid, or you're making everyone's beds _and_ cleaning the floors! You won't have any time to talk to girls – on account of all the _cleaning_!"

She looked at Helen suddenly. "Does he _like_ cleaning? That's not normal."

"I often find he prefers to be the one making all the mess, as opposed to cleaning it up," Helen offered.

Abby shook his arm more roughly. "Why are you still sleeping?" She let go of his arm and brought her wrist up to her mouth, biting into it with a muffled scream.

Helen winced and blanched, kicking herself for not having guessed Abby might do that and stopping her first.

Abby held out her wrist, her arm shaking badly, splashes of blood splatting everywhere. "Here, blood! Don't say I don't know how to share!" She watched the blood pouring out of her wound and splatting over Nikola's face and growled. He wasn't waking up.

She grabbed his arms and shook him fiercely. "Stupid, lazy sack of bones!" She shook him some more, then grew tired of that and just rested her forehead against his.

"Abby apologises for snacking on the lazy-ass jerk named Nicky and requests that he wake the hell up and acknowledge her apology, dumb-ass! In fact, I don't even _like_ your ass. I think it's stupid, like you. Are you deaf? I just insulted you to your face, boy! You can't be _that_ dead – it's stupid!" She growled menacingly. "Argh!"

She sat up suddenly, smiling at Helen. "I know you like her," she told Nikola, staring intently at Helen, her teeth sharpening before her eyes. "_I_ like her, too!"

Helen shook her head. "Abby, don't do this!"

Abby pointed at Nikola sharply, prodding him in the chest with a sharp fingernail. "What if he can help me find my father, Helen? I can't just let him stay dead. I'm not stupid. _I'm not stupid_."

"I know you're not stupid, Abby."

Abby snarled. "He's forcing my hand, Helen. I don't want to hurt you, but I will – if I have to. We do what we do to get results, right?"

"No, Abby, there are ways of doing things."

Abby shook her head, her eyes darkening to black. "Maybe for you, but I just killed someone, Helen. I know what I'm capable of, and now I know I can do anything. _Anything_. It makes no difference to me anymore."

"Abby, that isn't true. It makes a difference. Each and every time, it makes a difference."

Abby rolled her eyes. "I'm not you, Helen. I'm not like you. You're-" She yelped suddenly and Helen backed away, just then noticing that Nikola appeared to have returned from the dead and grabbed Abby.

"You're squashing me, you idiot!" Abby complained loudly. "Oh my God, now you're just-"

Nikola laughed. "You think you can trick me into letting you go, Abigail, but you're wrong. I'm not letting go."

"This could be a problem," Abby told him. "You know, Will might not like the idea of you- There's a word for it, it's just not coming to me right now! And I wasn't going to chow on Helen – you're so gullible! I just needed her to think I was, because I know how the two of you just love the whole Vulcan mind meld thing you've got going on! And don't think you can deny it, either, because – I chowed on your ass good, boy! You – were down for the count!"

"Pfff! She's imagining things. I think you need to administer drugs, Helen. Soon."

Abby tilted her head from side to side mockingly. "Yeah, give them to _him_! Maybe then he'll quit feeling me up! Aw, and in front of your lady love, Nicky! That's, that's unforgivable! Have a bit of tact, at least."

"She's not my lady love, Abby. I'm with Will."

Abby choked and spun around, managing to loosen his hold on her some in her struggles. "I am going to pound the living beejeezus out of you Nikola Tesla if you do not take that stupid-ass comment back _this very instant_!"

"Yeah? Round two? I think I like the sound of that."

She smacked him in the face lightly with a hand. "Dummy! Everyone can just tell you haven't had any. You're always so, _Ooo, let's fight! B-ring it!_ Two words, Nicky: Dead give away!"

"Two words?"

She cackled, pointing a finger at him. "Denial! Let go of me now, stupid! If you don't mind, I have to go make sure I haven't chowed on Kate. Or anyone else. Stupid!" She glanced at Helen, offering a wince. "And, I have to tell Will I'm a blood-sucking, hungry/thirsty, hottie-baby-by-day fiend."

"Hottie baby? You have issues, child."

"Yeah, yeah. Sure, sure. Whatevs, Nicky! The difference is, I might be messed up, but I get some, and you're just sadly, plainly, there's-nothing-more-to-see-here-folks messed up."

"And she's sex-crazed!"

"And you're Helen-crazed!"

He crossed his arms, huffing. "You're embarrassing, you know that? If Will drops your hottie-baby ass, you will surely know why."

She prodded him in the arm. "Because you make Serbian people look... not yummy!"

"Haven't you read _Twilight_? Hmmm? Vampires are always yummy... looking! It's... a survival mechanism!"

"Well you're not!"

"No, you're not!"

Helen coughed pointedly and they both looked around at her.

Abby pointed a finger at her. "My father's Serbian! I am totally half-Serbian person!"

Nikola snorted. "And _illiterate_! Nice! Finishing touches – they rock!"

"I'm sorry – what decade are you living in? Nobody says 'rock' anymore," Abby told him.

"No, we say big not-a-stone-but-like-a-stone-but-still-not-a-stone _thing_." He shrugged. " 'Cause I just know stuff like that, you know."

"You're killing me! You know what I meant! Seriously – she's right there! Ask her!"

Nikola dropped his face into his hands, shaking his head. "Again!"

"Aw, but you know you love me anyway."

"I don't!" he growled.

"Prude!"

"Pff!"

She glanced at Helen and widened her eyes. "If I pay for the hotel room-" She mumbled something through the hand Nikola had just stuck over her mouth.

"She's good," Nikola told Helen casually, shaking his head. "She's just... humming. Hum-" He winced.

Abby mumbled something more loudly.

"She has a biting fetish. She's in ther-"

Abby smacked him over the head. "You stupid dummy! I might have a biting fetish but you have a Helen-feti-" She stared at Helen, staring determinately in the opposite direction, her cheeks glowing bright pink. "I'm shutting up now."

"Are you sure?" Nikola growled.

"Shut up!" she mumbled. "You're the one... Mmm-mmm-mmm..."

"I don't speak... whatever language that was," he told her.

"Whatever. Your blood is giving me a rash, by the way. It's totally gross."

"Shush! I think she's deciding whether to shoot us now or later. Don't fluster her."

Abby glared at him but didn't say another word. Then, because she really couldn't resist, she leant closer and whispered sharply in his ear, "Quit ogling her, already! I know you're totally picturing her _au naturel_ and it's turning my stomach! If she shoots us, I blame you! _I'm_ flustering her! The nerve of you, boy!"

"Shh-shh! You're ruining my fantasy."

She smacked his face. "Stupid. What fantasy?"

"Like I'd seriously tell you!"

"Why not? I'm practically your sister."

"Oh, that's disgusting! Just what do you think of us Serbs, Abigail?" He gestured emphatically with his hands. "You just don't...! You are so, _so_ disturbed! Beyond words, you creepy little illiterate!"

"It takes one to know one, brother."

He waved a finger at her angrily. "That is it! That is... the last straw!"

She poked her tongue out at him. "I don't need straws – I make do with my fangs very nicely."

Nikola shot to his feet and stalked over to Helen, who continued to ignore him despite the fact that he was standing right behind her, waiting for her to turn and yell at him, or whatnot.

Abby shook her head.

Nikola glared at her.

"Helen, I have to apologise. This is all my fault. And that...! Is the truth. Take me away and... lock me up somewhere. I'm not safe to be around other people."

Helen finally turned to face him, shaking her head. "Vampires!"

"I... I'm sorry."

She glared at him. "You're behaving like a child, Nikola."

"She scares me."

"Tosh!"

"She has insulted my heritage! On numerous occasions!"

"My, my!"

"Please, Helen! As a friend." He tried for a smile. When that didn't work, he said, "I do like you, you know, Helen. We could be great together."

She rolled her eyes and grabbed his arm roughly. "Alright, I've had about as much of this as I can take for one day! I hope you're happy, Nikola. You get your wish!"

He grinned. "Master of persuasion! Yes!"

"You are such a child!" Helen muttered, leading him to the door and out into the hall.

He froze. "Wait!" He spun back around. "What if it's a trick? She might be sending us away merely so she can finish what she started and..." He sighed heavily. "On second thoughts, I think I should like to remain in the infirmary for a little while longer yet. You go on and get Abby cleaned up and... you know about all of that stuff... and I'll stay and chat with Kate 'til you get back, honey."

Helen shook her head, scowling at him. "Fine! Have it your way, Nikola, but if you call me 'honey' again you _will_ live to regret it!"

"Ooo, sounds juicy! I like it... Honey!"

She stomped her foot and spun about, storming back into the infirmary. "Abby, you are to come with me!"

Abby looked up from her lap absently, then straightened and stood up. "For? I thought you were taking Nicky down to secure housing? Have we changed the itinerary?"

"Yes, we have!"

"Did he touch your ass?"

Helen's cheeks coloured but she said, as neutrally as possible, "He most certainly did not!"

"That's... slightly sad but completely poetic justice."

"No time to dally," Helen told her, and gestured ahead of her.

Abby sighed and marched towards the door, passing Nikola on the way out. "Awww!" she cooed.

"I am a gentleman, thank you. I would never take advantage of a lady's assets in such a manner as you are suggesting."

"Blah, blah, blah. Somebody hasn't heard The Talk! Wow! FYI, babies _don't_ come from cabbage patches!" She smiled at him and backed out the door, waving girlishly. "Have fun! And if Kate wakes up, tell her she's a pal – and ask her to give you The Talk."

Helen ignored their banter and shot Abby a pointed look.

"And what do I say about all the blood?" Nikola shouted back.

"What blood? It's ketchup, babes!"

He groaned, unimpressed in a bad way. "Oh, I think I may be ill!"

"I love ketchup! Just because you're a deviant! _Deviant!_ Seriously – The Talk!"

Helen grabbed her arm and forcibly dragged her away from the door. "Let's go, Abby."

Abby grinned at her. "So, Mum, when are you going to..." She widened her eyes suggestively. "I am totally on vamp crack right now, but come on, Helen, I would love you until the end of time! I just know he's a virgin! And I just know he'd shut up with all of the suggestive, sexual innuendo crapoley if got a taste of the real thing. I can't take it any more! He's like a teenage boy. I want to slap him silly and lock him in the closet – and that's child abuse!

"Man, when I... psshoo, come back to Earth, I'm never going to be able to set foot in this place again, or look at Will, my honey baby. Maybe that's why Mum left. Vampires really are jerks."

"It's a distinct possibility, my dear," Helen told her frankly.

Abby stared at her strangely. "Yeah! Um, you know, Nikola says that too. 'My dear'."

"A lot of people say it, Abby."

"Yeah, but you don't know a lot of people. You know Nicky." She smiled.

"You're right – you'll never be able to set foot in this place again once you've come to your senses."

Abby sniffed. "I hate vampires! Do you ever get the feeling they're, I dunno, lusty-overload? Too grabby for their own good?"

"I think the term you're searching for is 'red-blooded'," Helen replied.

Abby snorted, and frowned. "Were you just making a joke?"

"I believe I was, Abigail."

"Vampire jokes. Awesome! Aw, man, I cannot believe this! I do not rock vampdom! Vampdom is lame! I hate it! Daddy, you suck!" She slumped her shoulders. "Can we not go by the residential quarters? Please! If I even smell Will, I just know I'll do something I'll severely regret when I've got my head back on straight. Now I know why Nicky drinks all that wine. He says it doesn't help, but really, really, booze is a total downer on your sex drive. Oh my God, I'm turning into Nicky! I simply must solve the mysteries of the universe – each and every single one of them, damn it! – or become a zombie-slash-vegetable-slash-virgin-slash-uptight-jerk. My life is doomed! Nicky, you bastard!"

Helen sighed heavily and whispered, "Shoot me now!"


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Note: Serbian translations are from Google Translate, so not strictly guaranteed. :(

Yeah, this gets a little funky. Double :(

.

Returning to the infirmary an hour later, Helen was surprised to find that the blood splattering the floor and walls and various other places had been cleaned up. She'd left Abby with Henry, after waking him up at half past six in the morning, and headed back to the infirmary, the first rays of sunlight lighting up the day dully. She could tell her state of tiredness was starting to become something of an adversary by the way she had to stop and regain her balance when a particularly strong bout of weariness overcame her, but she felt moderately better now, knowing things were running more smoothly again, no-one had died in the night.

She crossed to Kate's bed where Nikola had dragged the chair Will had been sitting in last night and seemed to have fallen asleep. She noticed he was holding Kate's hand, and that he'd cleaned the blood off her face. Stepping closer, she was couldn't help but frown when he didn't sit up and make to start some conversation with her. After all, vampires didn't have much need of sleep, and then she noticed how pale his hand was and reached over to place her own hand over his. It was like ice.

She glanced at Kate once more, satisfied by the colour in her face that she wasn't in any immediate danger, and gently pried Nikola's hand away from Kate's. "Nikola?"

"I am sorry, _dragi moj_. She was just a little stronger than I. She was confused, that is all."

Helen placed a hand on his shoulder, leaning over to try and catch his eye. "You're awake?"

He opened his eyes but didn't look at her, his gaze unfocused, glazed. "Yeees..."

She nodded. "Good. That is good to hear. Abby is fine. I left her with Henry. And you? How are you?"

"Better, now that you're here." He sat up straight and glanced around at her, his eyes landing on a spot just over her shoulder and staying there. "You're exhausted. You should rest."

Helen glanced over her shoulder, hoping to spy who he was looking at, but there was no-one there. She frowned, returning her gaze to his.

"What's wrong?" he asked suddenly, and she remembered that she was still holding his hand. His hand wasn't any warmed than before and she wished she could have let go of it.

"What are you looking at?" she asked.

"Why, you, of course, _ljubimac_!" he replied, but she shook her head. She knew he wasn't looking at her; he was only _almost_ looking at her.

"On the contrary, _ljubimac_. You're not looking at me. I don't know what you're looking at." She let go of his hand and he stopped smiling. "You can't see me, can you?"

"I can feel you. You're so warm."

She brushed aside the creepiness of his comment and stood up straighter, lifting her chin defiantly. "But you cannot see me."

"I can hear you. Your heart beats so beautifully; like a song. A lovely song."

Helen resisted the urge to grind her teeth. "Nikola! Are you sick? Did you catch whatever ailment it is Abby seems to have come down with?"

"She is no longer under any ailment. She is well, Helen. _Don't worry_."

"What about you, Nikola?"

"I'm just... tired. Very tired. How does Kate look? Did I manage to get all of the blood off?"

"She's fine. There is no blood left on her."

He smiled oddly and reached out a hand for her, missing her completely. "Would you be so kind as to show me to the residential quarters, _dragi moj_? I promise, I won't bite."

She glanced at his hand momentarily, wondering if he really couldn't see her or if it was all an elaborate show on his behalf, and if she should care either way. "What does that mean? _Dragi moj_? What does it mean?"

"'My dear'."

Despite her best efforts, her face darkened in a glare. Was there never a time he wasn't trying to charm her in his typical, over-exaggerated, sickly manner? "And _ljubimac_?"

"Pet, sweetheart. Darling."

She scowled silently and reached for his hand roughly, taking it in her own. Her voice was a touch too cold when she spoke, even for her own liking. "Get up! I'll find you somewhere suitable." She didn't dwell on it, though, and headed straight for the door, Nikola along with her.

She was starting to remember now why she'd always remained that bit wary of him, why she'd never let herself trust him completely. He could never just be truthful. Ever. There was always some other prerogative in the background she invariably tended to overlook until it was very nearly too late.

She didn't bother slowing her pace just because he couldn't see. She didn't even flinch when he smacked his shoulder into the side of the door on the way out of the infirmary. He should've known better, should've had the layout all mapped out in his mind. He claimed to be a genius, after all.

.

Leaving him just inside the door of one of the spare bedrooms, she said, "I thought you'd recovered."

He smiled, his tone ever so delighted. "Ah, so you are not so immune to my glamour, my dear!"

She pulled the door shut with a bang and left him to find his own way over to the bed. She didn't bother stopping to go back and ask how he was when she heard a loud thudding noise. Personally, she hoped it had hurt just a bit. It would teach him something, if he was lucky.

.

Will stared at the empty bed where last night Abby had lay and tried not to think the worse, tried not to surrender to the dark thoughts swirling in his mind, hurting his chest. It was hard to move away from the door and walk to the side of Kate's bed, to look down into her face and register the fact that she was alive, breathing, when he didn't know anything of Abby's condition: if she was alive... or dead.

Someone would have told him. Someone would have told him if anything had happened to Abby. He told himself this over and over, but it didn't really help. He hadn't yet been to see anyone else, to talk to Magnus or Henry. He'd come straight to the infirmary to see Abby, feeling awful for having left her last night.

"Kate?"

One of her hands looked about ready to tumble off the mattress so he pulled up his sleeve and was about to pick it up when he noticed an area of slightly raised, smoother skin, some kind of scar tissue, like a burn that had healed a long time ago, in her palm, though he knew there was no way it could be a scar from an old burn because he'd never seen it before and nobody healed that fast. Nobody human, at least.

He let go of his sleeve and risked picking up her hand with just his hand, his heart racing faster as his mind whirred over the possibilities that this mark, this scar, was the first clue to whatever sickness had befallen Abby and her.

Her hand was warm and soft, the scar tissue just that bit harder and more inflexible, paler, than the rest of her hand.

He took a deep breath and called her name again. "Kate? Kate? You have to wake up. It's vitally important."

"Helen said she'll be fine."

He spun around at the interruption, his eyes snapping to the woman who'd spoken, standing in the doorway with a mug of coffee in hand and wearing something he'd hadn't seen on her before. His heart could have skipped a beat, he wasn't rightly sure.

He dropped Kate's hand and hurried to the door, his great relief clear on his face. "_Abby!_"

"Morning, Will," she said. "I brought you a coffee."

He couldn't help but notice how her eyes were slightly flat, how they hadn't lit up to see him, and how she kept her distance, stepping no closer but calmly offering him the mug in her hand.

He shook his head, ignoring the evidence of her odd behaviour. All that mattered was that she was alright, alive. "What happened? Do you remember anything? Are you okay?"

"I'm a vampire, Will. Or... a half-vampire." She frowned, then seemed to give up thinking on it and dropped her frown.

"What?" Will tried to tell himself he'd heard wrong, or something; tried to convince himself he was still dreaming and this was a nightmare, a horrible nightmare, this wasn't Abby standing here in front of him so calmly, so coldly.

"I'm a vampire," Abby repeated. "Are you..." she held the mug up higher, "having this coffee?"

He stared at her for a long moment, then shook his head. He still couldn't get his head around what she'd just told him. He didn't want it to be true.

"I didn't know... before," she said a little blankly. "I think... I think I did love you. Up until half an hour ago, I loved you with all of my heart. I was so scared. I didn't know how I was going to tell you, how I was going to break the news to you that I was a monster, but now... I'm not worried at all. I'm sorry. Whatever it was I felt for you in the past, I don't feel it anymore. It's just gone. I respect you as another human being, but I don't love you. I don't even feel any pull of attraction. I think... I think we were never quite right for each other." She sniffed, at last, and frowned. "Are you very upset? I know I've been rather forward, perhaps rather harsh, but I didn't want to lie to you. I felt it would be wrong. Do you need some space?"

He gazed into her eyes searchingly, pleadingly, and saw that there was no need making a big fuss over it all. Abby was telling the truth. She no longer cared for him. Whatever had happened last night, it had changed her mind about some things, and he'd been one of those things.

He didn't bother saying anything further; he merely turned and walked back the way he'd come, back over to Kate, and sat down in the chair beside her bed.

"See you 'round," Abby called from the door, and then she was gone, taking the mug of coffee she'd brought for him with her.

Will dropped his face into his hands and finally allowed his sorrow to come through, his shoulders shaking gently as he sobbed silently.

The woman he'd just spoken to in the door might well have been anyone, might well have been a stranger, even, because she wasn't Abby. Not anymore. Abby was gone, changed.

And he hurt for her. And for himself, for his shattered heart.

.

"Hey. Hey... it's alright." The soft, warm voice startled him out of his deep, dark mood and he dropped his hands from his face, lifting his face so he could look at whoever it was who'd spoken, who was now rubbing his back consolingly with a comforting, warm hand.

Kate smiled at him gently, her eyes sparkling warmly, and in a chaotic rush of thoughts and emotions, he rejected it all, rejected everything but her, Kate – her soft eyes, her warm touch, the calm, steady caring for him he could feel radiating off her in waves – and he took her face in his badly unsteady hands and kissed her, not gently, but fiercely, with all of his sadness and pain, with all of the deep, dark anger writhing inside him, and he didn't even care if he didn't stop for breath. She'd offered herself to him, and he'd taken her, all of her. He would have all of her.

He rose quickly from his chair and, still kissing her, he closed the little space that had been left between them, pushing her back on the bed and settling himself on top of her, his hands already gliding over her warm, tanned skin, devouring her trembling curves.

She pushed at his arms weakly and he pulled his mouth off hers, breathing harshly into her ear, "You only get one chance, Kate. I won't give you another. Make up your mind." Then he lowered his mouth to her neck and kissed her there. She stopped trying to push him away and he smiled against her skin, biting into her neck with his teeth, but not hard enough to hurt.

She sniffed quietly and rubbed his back for a moment before moving her hands to the front of his pants. She eased a hand inside him pants and he groaned, his eyes fluttering closed. He didn't see the tear that ran down her face, splashing onto her lips all warm and salty.

.

Helen woke up minutes before her alarm clock, as she did every morning, and lay in bed staring up at the ceiling, trying to find some thought to properly wake her up, to latch onto. It was almost eight, the morning light splashing across her face, but she couldn't seem to find her train of thought.

The bed felt warm, comfortable enough, but something wasn't quite right. She could feel in her muscles that the few, meagre hours sleep had been enough, but inside she felt strangely empty. Everything smelled the same as it always did, the washing powder scent of her bedding the same as it had been for the last year and a half; even the sunlight on her face, muted only a little by the cold, clear glass of her bedroom window, felt familiar, commonplace. Everything was just as it always was, but she wasn't. Inside, something felt different. Colder, sadder.

She sat up, irritated with her inactivity already, and supposed she might just have been taking her time assimilating last night's discoveries, and feeling for her work colleagues. It was amazing how fast something you thought you knew could suddenly change, how fast reality could realign into something strange, foreign, at first unwanted. You either got through it or you didn't, and you let it rule you.

She wasn't sure which path Abby and Will would take, but she hoped they had the strength to go the long, hard haul, to live with everything that had changed, but not trapped inside it, not confined, controlled by it.

She had a feeling Will would pull through. He always did, in the end, but she didn't know Abby well enough to say for certain which path she'd ultimately choose.

When she finally made it into the kitchen for breakfast, Henry was standing by the open fridge door, staring into the fridge with a frown. He pointed to the table without looking her way and said, "There's tea, if you're up for it. Abby went home. I gather she spoke with Will, but I haven't seen him yet. I guess he'll work things out in his own way. Actually, Abby said they... broke up. I'm not quite sure on the specifics, but I'm sure Will will come to us if he needs anyone to talk to. Why is there some... gadgetmabobby in the refrigerator?"

Helen poured herself a cup of tea and suppressed a sigh. "I very much imagine it's another of Nikola's incomprehensible inventions."

Henry yawned. "Probably." He took something out of the fridge and closed the door, walking over to the table to sit down. "Do you want some jello?"

She smiled. "No thank you, but I appreciate the offer. Did we speak earlier?"

He nodded, stabbing his spoon into the jelly. "Yep. Hang on, when, sorry?"

"You said Abby went home."

He nodded.

"So I must have..."

"Yeah, yeah. You did. Oh, you... I should've waited 'til you'd..." He winced. Until she was properly awake, and had had some decent sleep. "I'm sorry, doc! Do you think she'll be okay, or...?"

"I'm sure she'll be fine."

"She ate all our jelly beans."

"Oh boy!"

"She didn't jump up and break into spontaneous song and dance. I was hoping that meant she was feeling better."

"You know what, I have a feeling you're right, Henry. She didn't just transform into a vampire last night; she's been one her whole life. I think she and Nikola just don't get along."

"Tesla's good at that. At just not getting along with people."

"Oh yes!" She frowned, catching his eye. "Really? She ate all the jelly beans? There's not a single one remaining?"

"Not a one, doc."

"She's keen."

"Erika says splurging on sweets is a female's coping mechanism."

"Really?"

He nodded.

She bit her lip.

Henry smiled, offering her the other cup of jelly her eyes had gone to and a spoon.

"Thank you, Henry," she told him, and smiled back at him.

.

"Have they been mistreating you, _moja ljubav_?"

Helen looked up from her jelly cup and glanced in the direction of the fridge, rolling her eyes. Apparently Nikola wasn't doing all that badly after all. He could still sneak about places silently. Perhaps he was still a little tired and he'd forgotten about his little game of earlier, pretending he couldn't see anything.

"Ouch! You bit me! Bad... _thing_!" He froze suddenly, staying very still for a moment, and retreated from the fridge, turning about and shutting the door slowly after him. He hummed something she didn't recognise but assumed was probably Serbian absently and narrowed his eyes suspiciously, backing away into the fridge door very quietly.

Helen put a hand up to her mouth to stifle the urge to giggle. Finally, she decided it was a little cruel to say nothing and opened her mouth to put him out of his misery. "Nikola, there is nothing in my fridge that would be in the slightest bit interested in biting _you_, let me assure you."

"Ha!" He grinned, completely missing her eyes once again. "I knew it was you, you dreadful tease!"

She smiled. "You really had no idea it was me, did you?"

"I had hope."

She snorted. "Well, I must say, I'm surprised I didn't hear you falling over things and walking into every wall from here to the residential block. Surprised and impressed."

"Ah, impressed! Impressed is good. On a slightly less impressing note, I need wine. Badly! You wouldn't happen to know where any was, would you? I think I may have concussed myself a few times on the way over here."

She laughed. "You shouldn't drink alcohol if you've a head injury, Nikola. Don't you know that?"

"It's not so much to do with not knowing as to do with not caring," he replied. "Stay calm and remain alert, blah, blah. Those of the 'ordinary' persuasion may find such maladies rather life threatening, but I am hardly ordinary, Helen, as well you know, my dear. So, to cut a long story short, I don't care. I just don't care. The wine. Steer me in the right direction, if you can."

"Actually, I haven't finished eating my jello," she told him.

He choked, pulling a face. "You're kidding me, Helen!"

"Henry made it. I find it rather... nice, actually."

He closed his eyes, leaning his head back against the freezer door. "I'm just... imagining..." A smile came onto his face, then just as quickly disappeared. "Oh God, that's disgusting! Jello – and without any alcohol! Abhorrent!" He stepped away from the fridge, reaching out a hand in front of him. "Say when, _moja ljubav_."

Helen shook her head silently and couldn't help giggling when he smacked into the table, frowning as though actually confused as to why it was there.

He felt along the edge of the table and moved slowly closer to her. "The jello is evil, Helen. It's clouding your judgement. I must dispose of it swiftly."

She laughed, smacking a hand over her mouth, and reached out to pat his arm. "What does that mean?" she asked. "_Moja ljubav?_"

It took him a moment to reply. "My opponent. Bane of my existence, just softly. In other words, you, my troublesome minx."

She leapt up out of her chair and scooped up his hand in her own, smiling at him. "If you help me make pancakes, I'll find you some wine. Deal?"

He whined quietly, making a face, muttering, "Evil!"

She grinned. "Nikola, _moja ljubav_, this is a limited-time-only deal... and the clock is ticking..." She narrowed her eyes at him. He was oddly silent. "Nikola! If you're trying to persuade me with the power of your mind, it's not going to work."

He blushed suddenly and looked away from her. "It's not my style, truthfully."

She stopped smiling and frowned, not quite sure why he was embarrassed. Maybe he really had been trying to impress upon her will with his thoughts, or maybe it was just that she'd been holding his hand for some time and it was suddenly... awkward...

"If you could, you would. I know you through and through, Nikola. You'd adore it, I'm sure."

He looked back at her, not quite meeting her eyes. "I adore you."

Helen grinned and thought fast, searching for a witty comeback for that, but nothing came to her. After a moment, she realised she really did feel quite awkward standing so close to Nikola with his staring at her the way he was and them holding hands, his comment – pretty typical of him, really – ringing in the air. Her stomach felt strange, all of a sudden, and she had a strong suspicion it had nothing to do with the jello she'd just had.

"For your unabashed honesty," Nikola added, at last.

To Helen's ears, the comment sounded false, and that troubled her as she tried to remember what it connected to, what had been said before, the strange feeling that had invaded her stomach intensifying.

She tugged on his hand roughly, for lack of anything else to do, for any other way to break the awkward silence mounting painfully between them, and laughed loudly, somewhat clumsily, raucously. The sound jangled on her nerves, irritating her, but she told herself she didn't care, and she said, "Nikola, what's it going to be? You have to make your mind up sometime. Do you think you could spare a couple of moments out of your day to help out, and keep me company? I honestly wouldn't know the first thing about making pancakes, but I thought I'd give it a go, as a surprise for Will and Kate. Even if you firmly believe pancakes are evil, you're under no obligation to eat them. I won't hold you down and force you, I promise."

"Promises, promises, Helen. I'm not sure that I'm inclined to trust you, my dear."

She patted his shoulder. "Trust me, I really just need someone about to make certain I don't pop out for sugar and never come back."

"And then I get wine?"

She smiled. "And then you get wine!"

He considered the deal for a couple of moments, and sighed. "Alright, you have a deal – but on one condition."

She frowned, weighing up if it was really worth it to be agreeing to any of Nikola's conditions. They always tended to be a little creepy, and a little too Helen-centred for comfort. "Let's hear it then," she said.

"Under the present circumstances, I find I'm not entirely comfortable sleeping alone in some room I really don't know with... with goodness knows what lurking around the corner just waiting to pounce on any unsuspecting persons who happen to be at hand. It would be a comfort just knowing someone else was there, who could actually see... something. In essence, I was thinking of something along the lines of a slumber party... minus the entourage. A trade, if you will: a little of my time for a little of your time."

Helen's eyes widened and she was glad, for once, that Nikola couldn't see the look on her face. Ignoring the uneasy twisting in her stomach, she shrugged a shoulder. "I have never attended a slumber party. It does sound intriguing. Well, alright, Nikola, I'll buy it. But if you cheat at Truth or Dare, I'll put you out in the hall to sleep. Understood?"

"Understood."

She nodded and tugged him after her, going to find some suitable equipment for pancake-making.

.

Will sat on the floor at the foot of the bed, wishing quite honestly and quite badly that he'd miraculously wind up knocked out on the floor. It was usually something he was good at, landing himself in with a concussion and a sad case of guilt. He didn't even care if it hurt. He almost thought it would be nice, actually, if it did. Maybe not nice, but right. It was worse right now, sitting here with only the sound of his own breathing for company, and the horrible hard floor, him unable, even, to bring himself to look at Kate, whose own breathing was so quiet he couldn't make it out even just faintly though he'd been trying very hard for several long minutes now.

It wasn't Kate's fault. He was the... the... creep, manipulator, psycho. He could just keep listing words, his heart clenching in his chest at each and every one of them because they didn't mean a damn thing – they hurt, sure, but they meant nothing. Next to what he'd done to Kate, his own pain was nothing.

He brushed away a couple of tears and continued staring blankly at the empty doorway. He was never, ever going to be able to make up for this. He was as good as a monster himself now – but he hadn't been born this way, he'd willingly walked into it, willingly committed the crime. He was worse. Worse than just a monster.

He'd hurt Kate.

Kate.

His Kate.

His colleague and friend.

He lifted a hand numbly to brush away the fresh tears shining on his face and suddenly felt someone else's hand there first, brushing them away for him. Kate pressed a soft kiss to the end of his nose. "We did this thing together, Will. If we did the wrong thing and someone has to take the blame, we'll take it 50/50. I... Okay, I'll admit, I didn't expect it, but I... I'm not mad at you. I'm mad at myself, the same way I know you're mad at yourself. I wanted, for so long, to..." she sighed, "but you were with Abby, and you were happy! And I wanted you to be happy!" She brushed away another couple of tears from his face. "I'm sorry if you hate yourself right now, but I don't want you to. If you think I want you to, I don't." She put a hand on his leg, giving it a soft squeeze. "You're my friend, and I hope you think of me as your friend, too. I'm not mad at you. I'm mad at myself. I'm mad at myself because I'm so happy and you're so sad." She rested her head on his shoulder and hugged him. "I'm sorry, Will. I was selfish. I knew this could only turn out to be a bad idea, in the end, but I wanted it too much. I wanted you too much. I haven't been a good friend."

He brushed at his face and grabbed hold of her arms, holding her away from him so he could look into her eyes. He shook his head, trying to psych himself up for what he needed to say. His eyes felt too wet, and his throat was painfully tight, but he forced the words out anyway. "I was selfish, Kate. You were anything _but_ selfish. _I was!_"

"I don't care," Kate told him honestly, looking him straight in the eyes. "I don't. Seriously, right now – if you agreed to put all this behind us, I would. I wouldn't even blink. And if you said, if you said we could maybe start something," she nodded, "yes. Yes! Let's start something.

"I'm just happier when I'm with you. I can't explain it. I don't know why, and I don't care! I only know it's true. You make me happy, Will. Just thinking about you makes me happy, and that's pretty freaky. You're not a bad person. You're not." She gazed into his eyes beseechingly, just hoping that he might understand what she was telling him and feel better, feel less guilty. "_You make me happy_." She frowned sadly. "An' I wanna make you happy, too."

He rested his head against hers, closing his eyes. "You always have, from the first time I saw you. Even when I was mad at you, I still wanted to be around you."

"We are so messed up," she whispered.

He sniffed, laughing sadly. "I know, and it's not even... it's not even funny." He laughed again, tears running down his face, and Kate brushed them away, laughing morosely along with him.

It wasn't funny, it was so not funny, but what the hey!


End file.
